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MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS 



OLD TALES AND SUPERSTITIONS INTERPRETED 
BY COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY 



BY 

1 

JOHN FISKE 



La mythologie, cette science toute nouvelle, qui nous fait suivre les 
croyances de nos peres, depuis le berceau du monde jusqu'aux supersti- 
tions dc nos campagnes. — Edmond Scherer 




HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

1900 



«>WESfl ECE1VED 

Libre ry of c 

Off.- c ««»re»n 

*••'«« of Co„ tltit9> 




Copyright, IS72, 
Bx JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO. 
Copyright, 1900, 
By JOHN FISKE. 

All rights reserved. 



TWENTY-SIXTH IMPRESSION. 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 3fnss., U. S. A. 
Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company. 



TO 



MY DEAR FRIEND, 

WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS, 

IN REMEMBRANCE OF PLEASANT AUTUMN EVENINGS SPENT AMONG 
WEREWOLVES AND TROLLS AND NIXIES, 

E tolitcate 

THIS RECORD OF OUR ADVENTURES. 



PREFACE. 



IN" publishing this somewhat rambling and unsystem- 
atic series of papers, in which I have endeavoured to 
touch briefly upon a great many of the most important 
points in the study of mythology, I think it right to ob- 
serve that, in order to avoid confusing the reader with 
intricate discussions, I have sometimes cut the matter 
short, expressing myself with dogmatic definiteness where 
a sceptical vagueness might perhaps have seemed more be- 
coming. In treating of popular legends and superstitions, 
the paths of inquiry are circuitous enough, and seldom 
can we reach a satisfactory conclusion until we have 
travelled all the way around Eobin Hood's barn and back 
again. I am sure that the reader would not have thanked 
me for obstructing these crooked lanes with the thorns 
and brambles of philological and antiquarian discussion, 
to such an extent as perhaps to make him despair of ever 
reaching the high road. I have not attempted to review, 
otherwise than incidentally, the works of Grimm, Muller, 
Kuhn, Breal, Dasent, and Tylor ; nor can I pretend to 
have added anything of consequence, save now and then 
some bit of explanatory comment, to the results obtained 
by the labour of these scholars ; but it has rather been my 



vi 



PREFACE. 



aim to present these results in such a way as to awaken 
general interest in them. And accordingly, in dealing 
with a subject which depends upon philology almost as 
much as astronomy depends upon mathematics, I have 
omitted philological considerations wherever it has been 
possible to do so. Nevertheless, I believe that nothing 
has been advanced as established which is not now gen- 
erally admitted by scholars, and that nothing has been 
advanced as probable for which due evidence cannot be 
produced. Yet among many points which are proved, 
and many others which are probable, there must always 
remain many other facts of which we cannot feel sure 
that our own explanation is the true one; and the 
student who endeavours to fathom the primitive thoughts 
of mankind, as enshrined in mythology, will do well to 
bear in mind the modest words of Jacob Grimm, — him- 
self the greatest scholar and thinker who has ever dealt 
with this class of subjects, — "I shall indeed interpret all 
that I can, but I cannot interpret all that I should like." 

Petersham, September 6, 1872. 



CONTENTS. 

Page 

I. The Origins of Folk-Lore 1 

II. The Descent of Fire 37 

III. Werewolves and Swan-Maidens .... 69 

IY. Light and Darkness 104 

V. Myths of the Barbaric World .... 141 

YI. Juventus Mtjndi 174 

VII. The Primeval Ghost- World 209 

Note ........... 241 

Index .......... 243 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



I 

THE OKIGINS OF FOLK-LOBE. 

FEW mediaeval heroes are so widely known as William 
Tell. His exploits have been celebrated by one of 
the greatest poets and one of the most popular musicians 
of modern times. They are doubtless familiar to many 
who have never heard of Stauffacher or Winkelried, who 
are quite ignorant of the prowess of Eoland, and to whom 
Arthur and Lancelot, nay, even Charlemagne, are but 
empty names. 

Nevertheless, in spite of his vast reputation, it is very 
likely that no such person as William Tell ever existed, 
and it is certain that the story of his shooting the apple 
from his son's head has no historical value whatever. 
In spite of the wrath of unlearned but patriotic Swiss, 
especially of those of the cicerone class, this conclusion 
is forced upon us as soon as we begin to study the 
legend in accordance with the canons of modern histori- 
cal criticism. It is useless to point to Tell's lime-tree, 
standing to-day in the centre of the market-place at 
Altdorf, or to quote for our confusion his crossbow pre- 
served in the arsenal at Zurich, as unimpeachable wit- 
nesses to the truth of the story. It is in vain that we 
are told, " The bricks are alive to this day to testify to it ; 

1 A 



2 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



therefore, deny it not." These proofs are not more valid 
than the handkerchief of St. Veronica, or the fragments 
of the true cross. For if relics are to be received as 
evidence, we must needs admit the truth of every miracle 
narrated by the Bollandists. 

The earliest work which makes any allusion to the 
adventures of William Tell is the chronicle of the 
younger Melchior Euss, written in 1482. As the shoot- 
ing of the apple was supposed to have taken place in 
1296, this leaves an interval of one hundred and eighty- 
six years, during which neither a Tell, nor a William, 
nor the apple, nor the cruelty of Gessler, received any 
mention. It may also be observed, parenthetically, that 
the charters of Kussenach, when examined, show that 
no man by the name of Gessler ever ruled there. The 
chroniclers of the fifteenth century, Faber and Hammer- 
lin, who minutely describe the tyrannical acts by which 
the Duke of Austria goaded the Swiss to rebellion, do 
not once mention Tell's name, or betray the slightest 
acquaintance with his exploits or with his existence. In 
the Zurich chronicle of 1479 he is not alluded to. But 
we have still better negative evidence. John of Winter- 
thiir, one of the best chroniclers of the Middle Ages, was 
living at the time of the battle of Morgarten (1315), at 
which his father was present. He tells us how, on the 
evening of that dreadful day, he saw Duke Leopold him- 
self in his flight from the fatal field, half dead with fear. 
He describes, with the loving minuteness of a contem- 
porary, all the incidents of the Swiss revolution, but 
nowhere does he say a word about William Tell. This 
is sufficiently conclusive. These mediseval chroniclers, 
who never failed to go out of their way after a bit of the 
epigrammatic and marvellous, who thought far more of a 
pointed story than of historical credibility, would never 



THE ORIGINS OF FOLK-LORE. 



3 



have kept silent about the adventures of Tell, if they had 
known anything about them. 

After this, it is not surprising to find that no two 
authors who describe the deeds of William Tell agree in 
the details of topography and chronology. Such discrep- 
ancies never fail to confront us when we leave the solid 
ground of history and begin to deal with floating legends. 
Yet, if the story be not historical, what could have been 
its origin ? To answer this question we must consider- 
ably expand the discussion. 

The first author of any celebrity who doubted the 
story of William Tell was Guillimann, in his work on 
Swiss Antiquities, published in 1598. He calls the story 
a pure fable, but, nevertheless, eating his words, concludes 
by proclaiming his belief in it, because the tale is so pop- 
ular ! Undoubtedly he acted a wise part ; for, in 1760, 
as we are told, Uriel Freudenberger was condemned by 
the canton of Uri to be burnt alive, for publishing his 
opinion that the legend of Tell had a Danish origin.* 

The bold heretic was substantially right, however, like 
so many other heretics, earlier and later. The Danish 
account of Tell is given as follows, by Saxo Grammat- 
icus : — 

" A certain Palnatoki, for some time among King Har- 
old's body-guard, had made his bravery odious to very 
many of his fellow-soldiers by the zeal with which he 
surpassed them in the discharge of his duty. This man 
once, when talking tipsily over his cups, had boasted that 
he was so skilled an archer that he could hit the smallest 
apple placed a long way off on a wand at the first shot ; 
which talk, caught up at first by the ears of backbiters, 
soon came to the hearing of the king. Now, mark how 
the wickedness of the king turned the confidence of the 

* See Delepierre, Historical Difficulties, p. 75. 



4 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



sire to the peril of the son, by commanding that this 
dearest pledge of his life should be placed instead of the 
wand, with a threat that, unless the author of this prom- 
ise could strike off the apple at the first night of the 
arrow, he should pay the penalty of his empty boasting 
by the loss of his head. The king's command forced the 
soldier to perform more than he had promised, and what 
he had said, reported by the tongues of slanderers, bound 
him to accomplish what he had not said. Yet did not 
his sterling courage, though caught in the snare of slan- 
der, suffer him to lay aside his firmness of heart ; nay, he 
accepted the trial the more readily because it was hard. 
So Palnatoki warned the boy urgently when he took his 
stand to await the coming of the hurtling arrow with 
calm ears and unbent head, lest, by a slight turn of his 
body, he should defeat the practised skill of the bowman ; 
and, taking further counsel to prevent his fear, he turned 
away his face, lest he should be scared at the sight of the 
weapon. Then, taking three arrows from the quiver, he 
struck the mark given him with the first he fitted to the 

string But Palnatoki, when asked by the king why 

he had taken more arrows from the quiver, when it had 
been settled that he should only try the fortune of the 
bow once, made answer, ' That I might avenge on thee 
the swerving of the first by the points of the rest, lest 
perchance my innocence might have been punished, while 
your violence escaped scot-free.' " * 

This ruthless king is none other than the famous Har- 
old Blue-tooth, and the occurrence is placed by Saxo in 
the year 950. But the story appears not only in Den- 
mark, but in England, in Norway, in Finland and Kussia, 
and in Persia, and there is some reason for supposing that 
it was known in India. In Norway we have the adven- 

* Saxo Grammaticus, Bk. X. p. 166, ed. Frankf. 1576. 



THE ORIGINS OF FOLK-LORE. 



5 



tures of Pansa the Splay-footed, and of Hemingr, a 
vassal of Harold Hardrada, who invaded England in 
1066. In Iceland there is the kindred legend of Egil, 
brother of Wayland Smith, the Norse Vulcan. In Eng- 
land there is the ballad of William of Cloudeslee, which 
supplied Scott with many details of the archery scene 
in " Ivanhoe." Here, says the dauntless bowman, 

" I have a sonne seven years old ; 

Hee is to me full deere ; 
I will tye him to a stake — 

All shall see him that bee here — 
And lay an apple upon his head, 

And goe six paces him froe, 
And I myself with a broad arrowe 

Shall cleave the apple in towe. " 

In the Malleus Maleficarum a similar story is told of 
Puncher, a famous magician on the Upper Ehine. The 
great ethnologist Castren dug up the same legend in Fin- 
land. It is common, as Dr. Dasent observes, to the Turks 
and Mongolians ; " and a legend of the wild Samoyeds, 
who never heard of Tell or saw a book in their lives, 
relates it, chapter and verse, of one of their marksmen." 
Finally, in the Persian poem of Farid-Uddin Attar, born 
in 1119, we read a story of a prince who shoots an apple 
from the head of a beloved page. In all these stories, 
names and motives of course differ ; but all contain the 
same essential incidents. It is always an unerring archer 
who, at the capricious command of a tyrant, shoots from 
the head of some one dear to him a small object, be it an 
apple, a nut, or a piece of coin. The archer always pro- 
vides himself with a second arrow, and, when questioned 
as to the use he intended to make of his extra weapon, 
the invariable reply is, " To kill thee, tyrant, had I slain 
my son." Now, when a marvellous occurrence is said to 
have happened everywhere, we may feel sure that it 



6 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



never happened anywhere. Popular fancies propagate 
themselves indefinitely, but historical events, especially 
the striking and dramatic ones, are rarely repeated. The 
facts here collected lead inevitably to the conclusion 
that the Tell myth was known, in its general features, to 
our Aryan ancestors, before ever they left their primitive 
dwelling-place in Central Asia. 

It may, indeed, be urged that some one of these won- 
derful marksmen may really have existed and have per- 
formed the feat recorded in the legend ; and that his true 
story, carried about by hearsay tradition from one coun- 
try to another and from age to age, may have formed the 
theme for all the variations above mentioned, just as the 
fables of La Fontaine were patterned after those of ^Esop 
and Phsedrus, and just as many of Chaucer's tales were 
consciously adopted from Boccaccio. No doubt there has 
been a good deal of borrowing and lending among the 
legends of different peoples, as well as among the words 
of different languages ; and possibly even some pictur- 
esque fragment of early history may have now and then 
been carried about the world in this manner. But as the 
philologist can with almost unerring certainty distinguish 
between the native and the imported words in any Aryan 
language, by examining their phonetic peculiarities, so 
the student of popular traditions, though working with 
far less perfect instruments, can safely assert, with refer- 
ence to a vast number of legends, that they cannot have 
been obtained by any process of conscious borrowing. 
The difficulties inseparable from any such hypothesis 
will become more and more apparent as we proceed to 
examine a few other stories current in different portions 
of the Aryan domain. 

As the Swiss must give up his Tell, so must the Welsh- 
man be deprived of his brave dog Gellert, over whose 



THE ORIGINS OF FOLK-LORE. 



7 



iel fate I confess to having shed more tears than I 
>uld regard as well bestowed upon the misfortunes of 
ny a human hero of romance. Every one knows how 
dear old brute killed the wolf which had come to 
devour Llewellyn's child, and how the prince, returning 
home and finding the cradle upset and the dog's mouth 
dripping blood, hastily slew his benefactor, before the cry 
of the child from behind the cradle and the sight of the 
wolf's body had rectified his error. To this day the vis- 
itor to Snowdon is told the touching story, and shown 
the place, called Beth-Gellert,* where the dog's grave is 
still to be seen. Nevertheless, the story occurs in the 
fireside lore of nearly every Aryan people. Under the 
Gellert-form it started in the Panchatantra, a collection 
of Sanskrit fables ; and it has even been discovered in a 
Chinese work which dates from A. D. 668. Usually the 
hero is a dog, but sometimes a falcon, an ichneumon, an 
insect, or even a man. In Egypt it takes the following 
comical shape : " A Wali once smashed a pot full of herbs 
which a cook had prepared. The exasperated cook 
thrashed the well-intentioned but unfortunate Wali within 
an inch of his life, and when he returned, exhausted with 
his efforts at belabouring the man, to examine the broken 
pot, he discovered amongst the herbs a poisonous snake."-f* 
Now this story of the Wali is as manifestly identical 
with the legend of Gellert as the English word father is 
with the Latin pater ; but as no one would maintain 

* According to Mr. Isaac Taylor, the name is really derived from " St. 
Celert, a Welsh saint of the fifth century, to whom the church of Llan- 
geller is consecrated." (Words and Places, p. 339.) 

t Compare Krilof's story of the Gnat and the Shepherd, in Mr. Eals- 
ton's excellent version, Krilof and his Fables, p. 170. Many parallel 
examples are cited by Mr. Baring- Gould, Curious Myths, Yol. I. pp. 
126-136. See also the story of Folliculus, — Swan, Gesta Romanorum, 
ad. Wright, Vol. I. p. lxxxii. 



8 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



that the word father is in any sense derived from pater, 
so it would be impossible to represent either the Welsh 
or the Egyptian legend as a copy of the other. Obviously 
the conclusion is forced upon us that the stories, like the 
words, are related collaterally, having descended from a 
common ancestral legend, or having been suggested by 
one and the same primeval idea. 

Closely connected with the Gellert myth are the stories 
of Faithful John and of Eama and Luxman. In the 
German story, Faithful John accompanies the prince, his 
master, on a journey in quest of a beautiful maiden, 
whom he wishes to make his bride. As they are carry- 
ing her home across the seas, Faithful John hears some 
crows, whose language he understands, foretelling three 
dangers impending over the prince, from which his friend 
can save him only by sacrificing his own life. As soon 
as they land, a horse will spring toward the king, which, 
if he mounts it, will bear him away from his bride for- 
ever ; but whoever shoots the horse, and tells the king 
the reason, will be turned into stone from toe to knee. 
Then, before the wedding a bridal garment will lie be- 
fore the king, which, if he puts it on, will burn him like 
the Nessos-shirt of Herakles; but whoever throws the 
shirt into the fire and tells the king the reason, will be 
turned into stone from knee to heart. Finally, during 
the wedding-festivities, the queen will suddenly fall in a 
swoon, and " unless some one takes three drops of blood 
from her right breast she will die " ; but whoever does so, 
and tells the king the reason, will be turned into stone 
from head to foot. Thus forewarned, Faithful John saves 
his master from all these dangers ; but the king misinter- 
prets his motive in bleeding his wife, and orders him to 
be hanged. On the scaffold he tells his story, and while 
the king humbles himself in an agony of remorse, his 
noble friend is turned into stone. 



THE ORIGINS OF FOLK-LOBE. 



9 



In the South Indian tale Luxman accompanies Bama, 
who is carrying home his bride. Luxman overhears two 
owls talking about the perils that await his master and 
mistress. First he saves them from being crushed by 
the falling limb of a banyan-tree, and then he drags them 
away from an arch which immediately after gives way. 
By and by, as they rest under a tree, the king falls 
asleep. A cobra creeps up to the queen, and Luxman 
kills it with his sword; but, as the owls had foretold, 
a drop of the cobra's blood falls on the queen's forehead. 
As Luxman licks off the blood, the king starts up, and, 
thinking that his vizier is kissing his wife, upbraids him 
with his ingratitude, whereupon Luxman, through grief 
at this unkind interpretation of his conduct, is turned 
into stone.* 

For further illustration we may refer to the Norse tale 
of the " Giant who had no Heart in his Body," as related 
by Dr. Dasent. This burly magician having turned six 
brothers with their wives into stone, the seventh brother 
— the crafty Boots or many-witted Odysseus of European 
folk-lore — sets out to obtain vengeance if not reparation 
for the evil done to his kith and kin. On the way he 
shows the kindness of his nature by rescuing from de- 
struction a raven, a salmon, and a wolf. The grateful 
wolf carries him on his back to the giant's castle, where 
the lovely princess whom the monster keeps in irksome 
bondage promises to act, in behalf of Boots, the part of 
Delilah, and to find out, if possible, where her lord keeps 
his heart. The giant, like the Jewish hero, finally suc- 
cumbs to feminine blandishments. " Far, far away in a 
lake lies an island ; on that island stands a church ; in 
that church is a well; in that well swims a duck; in 
that duck there is an egg ; and in that egg there lies my 

* See Cox, Mythology of the Aryan Nations, Yol. I. pp. 145-149. 



10 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



heart, you darling." Boots, thus instructed, rides on the 
wolf's back to the island ; the raven flies to the top of the 
steeple and gets the church-keys ; the salmon dives to 
the bottom of the well, and brings up the egg from the 
place where the duck had dropped it; and so Boots 
becomes master of the situation. As he squeezes the 
egg, the giant, in mortal terror, begs and prays for his 
life, which Boots promises to spare on condition that his 
brothers and their brides should be released from their 
enchantment. But when all has been duly effected, the 
treacherous youth squeezes the egg in two, and the giant 
instantly bursts. 

The same story has lately been found in Southern 
India, and is published in Miss Frere's remarkable collec- 
tion of tales entitled " Old Deccan Days." In the Hindu 
version the seven daughters of a rajah, with their hus- 
bands, are transformed into stone by the great magician 
Punchkin, — all save the youngest daughter, whom 
Punchkin keeps shut up in a tower until by threats 
or coaxing he may prevail upon her to marry him. But 
the captive princess leaves a son at home in the cradle, 
who grows up to manhood unmolested, and finally under- 
takes the rescue of his family. After long and weary 
wanderings he finds his mother shut up in Punchkin's 
tower, and persuades her to play the part of the princess 
in the Norse legend. The trick is equally successful 
" Hundreds of thousands of miles away there lies a deso- 
late c juntry covered with thick jungle. In the midst of 
the jungle grows a circle of palm-trees, and in the centre 
of the circle stand six jars full of water, piled one above 
another ; below the sixth jar is a small cage which con- 
tains a little green parrot ; on the life of the parrot de- 
pends my life, and if the parrot is killed I must die." * 

* The same incident occurs in the Arabian story of Seyf-el-Mulook 



THE ORIGINS OF FOLK-LORE. II 

The young prince finds the place guarded by a host of 
dragons, but some eaglets whom he has saved from a 
devouring serpent in the course of his journey take him 
on their crossed wings and carry him to the place where 
the jars are standing. He instantly overturns the jars, 
and seizing the parrot, obtains from the terrified magi- 
cian full reparation. As soon as his own friends and 
a stately procession of other royal or noble victims have 
been set at liberty, he proceeds to pull the parrot to 
pieces. As the wings and legs come away, so tumble off 
the arms and legs of the magician ; and finally as the 
prince wrings the bird's neck, Punchkin twists his own 
head round and dies. 

The story is also told in the highlands of Scotland, and 
some portions of it will be recognized by the reader as 
incidents in the Arabian tale of the Princess Parizade. 
The union of close correspondence in conception with 
manifest independence in the management of the details 
of these stories is striking enough, but it is a phenomenon 
with which we become quite familiar as we proceed in 
the study of Aryan popular literature. The legend of 
the Master Thief is no less remarkable than that of 
Punchkin. In the Scandinavian tale the Thief, wishing 
to get possession of a farmers ox, carefully hangs him- 
self to a tree by the roadside. The farmer, passing by 
with his ox, is indeed struck by the sight of the dangling 

and Bedeea-el-Jemal, where the Jinni's soul is enclosed in the crop of a 
sparrow, and the sparrow imprisoned in a small box, and this enclosed 
in another small box, and this again in seven other boxes, which are put 
into seven chests, contained in a coffer of marble, which is sunk in the 
ocean that surrounds the world. Seyf-el-Mulook raises the coffer by 
the aid of Suleyman's seal-ring, and having extricated the sparrow, 
strangles it, whereupon the Jinni's body is converted into a heap of 
black ashes, and Seyf-el-Mulook escapes with the maiden D61et-Kha- 
toon. See Lane's Arabian Nights, Yol. III. p. 316. 



12 MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 

body, but thinks it none of his business, and does not stop 
to interfere. No sooner has he passed than the Thief lets 
himself down, and running swiftly along a by-path, hangs 
himself with equal precaution to a second tree. This 
time the farmer is astonished and puzzled ; but when for 
the third time he meets the same unwonted spectacle, 
thinking that three suicides in one morning are too much 
for easy credence, he leaves his ox and runs back to see 
whether the other two bodies are really where he thought 
he saw them. While he is framing hypotheses of witch- 
craft by which to explain the phenomenon, the Thief gets 
away with the ox. In the Hitopadesa the story receives 
a finer point. " A Brahman, who had vowed a sacrifice, 
went to the market to buy a goat. Three thieves saw 
him, and wanted to get hold of the goat. They stationed 
themselves at intervals on the high road. When the 
Brahman, who carried the goat on his back, approached 
the first thief, the thief said, ' Brahman, why do you carry 
a dog on your back ? ' The Brahman replied, ' It is not 
a dog, it is a goat.' A little while after he was accosted 
by the second thief, who said, ' Brahman, why do you 
carry a dog on your back ? ' The Brahman felt per- 
plexed, put the goat down, examined it, took it up again, 
and walked on. Soon after he was stopped by the third 
thief, who said, ' Brahman, why do you carry a dog on 
your back ? ' Then the Brahman was frightened, threw 
down the goat, and walked home to perform his ablutions 
for having touched an unclean animal. The thieves took 
the goat and ate it." The adroitness of the Norse King 
in " The Three Princesses of Whiteland " shows but poor- 
ly in comparison with the keen psychological insight and 
cynical sarcasm of these Hindu sharpers. In the course 
of his travels this prince met three brothers fighting on 
a lonely moor. They had been fighting for a hundred 



THE ORIGINS OF FOLK-LORE. 



13 



years about the possession of a hat, a cloak, and a pair 
of boots, which would make the wearer invisible, and 
convey him instantly whithersoever he might wish to 
go. The King consents to act as umpire, provided he 
may once try the virtue of the magic garments ; but once 
clothed in them, of course he disappears, leaving the 
combatants to sit down and suck their thumbs. Now in 
the "Sea of Streams of Story," written in the twelfth 
century by Somadeva of Cashmere, the Indian King 
Putraka, wandering in the Vindhya Mountains, similarly 
discomfits two brothers who are quarrelling over a pair 
of shoes, which are like the sandals of Hermes, and a 
bowl which has the same virtue as Aladdin's lamp. 
" Why don't you run a race for them ? " suggests Putraka ; 
and, as the two blockheads start furiously off, he quietly 
picks up the bowl, ties on the shoes, and flies away ! * 

It is unnecessary to cite further illustrations. The 
tales here quoted are fair samples of the remarkable cor- 
respondence which holds good through all the various 
sections of Aryan folk-lore. The hypothesis of lateral 
diffusion, as we may call it, manifestly fails to explain 
coincidences which are maintained on such an immense 
scale. It is quite credible that one nation may have 
borrowed from another a solitary legend of an archer who 
performs the feats of Tell and Palnatoki ; but it is utterly 
incredible that ten thousand stories, constituting the en- 
tire mass of household mythology throughout a dozen 
separate nations, should have been handed from one to 
another in this way. No one would venture to suggest 
that the old grannies of Iceland and Norway, to whom 
We owe such stories as the Master Thief and the Princesses 
of Whiteland, had ever read Somadeva or heard of the 

* The same incident is repeated in the story of Hassan of El- Basrah. 
See Lane's Arabian Nights, Vol. Ill p. 452. 



14 



MYTHS AXD MYTH-MAKERS. 



treasures of Bhampsinitos. A large proportion of the 
tales with which we are dealing were utterly unknown 
to literature until they were taken down by Grimm and 
Frere and Castren and Campbell, from the lips of igno- 
rant peasants, nurses, or house-servants, in Germany and 
Hindustan, in Siberia and Scotland. Yet, as Mr. Cox 
observes, these old men and women, sitting by the chim- 
ney-corner and somewhat timidly recounting to the lit- 
erary explorer the stories which they had learned in child- 
hood from their own nurses and grandmas, " reproduce the 
most subtle tons of thought and expression, and an end- 
less series of complicated narratives, in which the order 
of incidents and the words of the speakers are preserved 
with a fidelity nowhere paralleled in the oral tradition 
of historical events. It may safely be said that no series 
of stories introduced in the form of translations from 
other languages could ever thus have filtered down into 
the lowest strata of society, and thence have sprung up 
again, like Antaios, with greater energy and heightened 
beauty." There is indeed no alternative for us but to 
admit that these fireside tales have been handed down 
from parent to child for more than a hundred genera- 
tions ; that the primitive Aryan cottager, as he took his 
evening meal of yava and sipped his fermented mead, 
listened with his children to the stories of Boots and 
Cinderella and the Master Thief, in the days when the 
squat Laplander was master of Europe and the dark- 
skinned Sudra was as yet unmolested in the Punjab. 
Only such community of origin can explain the commu- 
nity in character between the stories told by the Aryan's 
descendants, from the jungles of Ceylon to the highlands 
of Scotland. 

This conclusion essentially modifies our view of the 
origin and growth of a legend like that of William Tell 



TEE ORIGINS OF FOLK-LORE. 



IS 



The case of the Tell legend is radically different from the 
case of the blindness of Belisarius or the burning of the 
Alexandrian library by order of Omar. The latter are 
isolated stories or beliefs ; the former is one of a family 
of stories or beliefs. The latter are untrustworthy tradi- 
tions of doubtful events ; Tmt in dealing with the former, 
we are face to face with a myth. 

What, then, is a myth ? The theory of Euhemeros, 
which was so fashionable a century ago, in the days of 
the Abbe* Banier, has long since been so utterly aban- 
doned that to refute it now is but to slay the slain. The 
peculiarity of this theory was that it cut away all the 
extraordinary features of a given myth, wherein dwelt its 
inmost significance, and to the dull and useless residuum 
accorded the dignity of primeval history. In this way 
the myth was lost without compensation, and the stu- 
dent, in seeking good digestible bread, found but the 
hardest of pebbles. Considered merely as a pretty story, 
the legend of the golden fruit watched by the dragon in 
the garden of the Hesperides is not without its value. 
But what merit can there be in the gratuitous statement 
which, degrading the grand Doric hero to a level with 
any vulgar fruit-stealer, makes Herakles break a close 
with force and arms, and carry off a crop of oranges 
which had been guarded by mastiffs ? It is still worse 
when we come to the more homely folk-lore with which 
the student of mythology now has to deal. The theo- 
ries of Banier, which limped and stumbled awkwardly 
enough when it was only a question of Hermes and 
Minos and Odin, have fallen never to rise again since 
the problems of Punchkin and Cinderella and the Blue 
Belt have begun to demand solution. The conclusion has 
been gradually forced upon the student, that the marvel- 
lous portion of these old stories is no illegitimate excres- 



1 6 MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 

cence, but was rather the pith and centre of the whole,* 
in days when there was no supernatural, because it had 
not yet been discovered that there was such a thing as 
nature. The religious myths of antiquity and the fire- 
side legends of ancient and modern times have their 
common root in the mental habits of primeval humanity. 
They are the earliest recorded utterances of men con- 
cerning the visible phenomena of the world into which 
they were born. 

That prosaic and coldly rational temper with which 
modern men are wont to regard natural phenomena was 
in early times unknown. We have come to regard all 
events as taking place regularly, in strict conformity to 
law : whatever our official theories may be, we instinc- 
tively take this view of things. But our primitive ances- 
tors knew nothing about laws of nature, nothing about 
physical forces, nothing about the relations of cause and 
effect, nothing about the necessary regularity of things. 
There was a time in the history of mankind when these 
things had never been inquired into, and when no gener- 
alizations about them had been framed, tested, or estab- 
lished. There was no conception of an order of nature, 
and therefore no distinct conception of a supernatural 
order of things. There was no belief in miracles as 
infractions of natural laws, but there was a belief in the 
occurrence of wonderful events too mighty to have been 
brought about by ordinary means. There was an unlim- 
ited capacity for believing and fancying, because fancy 
and belief had not yet been checked and headed off in 
various directions by established rules of experience. 
Physical science is a very late acquisition of the human 
mind, but we are already sufficiently imbued with it to 

* " Ketrancher le merveilleux d'un mythe, c'est le supprimer." — 
Breal, Hercule et Cacus, p. 50. 



THE ORIGINS OF FOLK-LORE. 



be almost completely disabled from comprehending the 
thoughts of our ancestors. " How Finn cosmogonists 
could have believed the earth and heaven to be made out 
of a severed egg, the upper concave shell representing 
heaven, the yolk being earth, and the crystal surround- 
ing fluid the circumambient ocean, is to us incomprehen- 
sible ; and yet it remains a fact that they did so regard 
them. How the Scandinavians could have supposed the 
mountains to be the mouldering bones of a mighty Jotun, 
and the earth to be his festering flesh, we cannot con- 
ceive ; yet such a theory was solemnly taught and 
accepted. How the ancient Indians could regard the 
rain-clouds as cows with full udders milked by the winds 
of heaven is beyond our comprehension, and yet their 
Veda contains indisputable testimony to the fact that 
they were so regarded." We have only to read Mr. 
Baring-Gould's book of " Curious Myths," from which I 
have just quoted, or to dip into Mr. Thorpe's treatise on 
" Northern Mythology," to realize how vast is the differ- 
ence between our stand-point and that from which, in 
the later Middle Ages, our immediate forefathers re- 
garded things. The frightful superstition of werewolves 
is a good instance. In those days it was firmly believed 
that men could be, and were in the habit of being, trans- 
formed into wolves. It was believed that women might 
bring forth snakes or poodle-dogs. It was believed that 
if a man had his side pierced in battle, you could cure 
him by nursing the sword which inflicted the wound. 
"As late as 1600 a German writer would illustrate a 
thunder-storm destroying a crop of corn by a picture of a 
dragon devouring the produce of the field with his flam- 
ing tongue and iron teeth." 

Now if such was the condition of the human intellect 
only three or four centuries ago, what must it have been 



iS 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



in that dark antiquity when not even the crudest gener- 
alizations of Greek or of Oriental science had been 
reached ? The same mighty power of imagination which 
now, restrained and guided by scientific principles, leads 
us to discoveries and inventions, must then have wildly 
run riot in mythologic fictions whereby to explain the 
phenomena of nature. Knowing nothing whatever of 
physical forces, of the blind steadiness with which a 
given effect invariably follows its cause, the men of pri- 
meval antiquity could interpret the actions of nature 
only after the analogy of their own actions. The only 
force they knew was the force of which they were directly 
conscious, — the force of will. Accordingly, they imag- 
ined all the outward world to be endowed with volition, 
and to be directed by it. They personified everything, 
— sky, clouds, thunder, sun, moon, ocean, earthquake, 
whirlwind.* The comparatively enlightened Athenians 
of the age of Perikles addressed the sky as a person, and 
prayed to it to rain upon their gardens.')- And for calling 
the moon a mass of dead matter, Anaxagoras came near 
losing his life. To the ancients the moon was not a life- 
less ball of stones and clods : it was the horned huntress, 
Artemis, coursing through the upper ether, or bathing 
herself in the clear lake ; or it was Aphrodite, protectress 
of lovers, born of the sea-foam in the East near Cyprus. 
The clouds were no bodies of vaporized water : they were 

* "TTo distinction between the animate and inanimate is made in the 
languages of the Esquimaux, the Choctaws, the Muskoghee, and the 
Caddo. Only the Iroquois, Cherokee, and the Algonquin-Lenape have 
it, so far as is known, and with them it is partial." According to the 
Fijians, "vegetables and stones, nay, even tools and weapons, pots and 
canoes, have souls that are immortal, and that, like the souls of men, 
pass on at last to Mbulu, the abode of departed spirits." — M'Lennan, 
The Worship of Animals and Plants, Fortnightlv Review, Yol. XII. p. 
416. 

t Marcus Aurelius, V. 7. 



THE ORIGINS OF FOLK-LORE. 1 9 

cows with swelling udders, driven to the milking by 
Hermes, the summer wind; or great sheep with moist 
fleeces, slain by the unerring arrows of Bellerophon, the 
sun ; or swan-maidens, flitting across the firmament, 
Valkyries hovering over the battle-field to receive the 
souls of falling heroes ; or, again, they were mighty 
mountains piled one above another, in whose cavernous 
recesses the divining- wand of the storm-god Thor revealed 
hidden treasures. The yellow-haired sun, Phoibos, drove 
westerly all day in his flaming chariot ; or perhaps, as 
Meleagros, retired for a while in disgust from the sight 
of men; wedded at eventide the violet light (Oinone, 
Iole), which he had forsaken in the morning ; sank, as 
Herakles, upon a blazing funeral-pyre, or, like Agamem- 
non, perished in a blood-stained bath ; or, as the fish-god, 
Dagon, swam nightly through the subterranean waters, 
to appear eastward again at daybreak. Sometimes 
Phaethon, his rash, inexperienced son, would take the 
reins and drive the solar chariot too near the earth, caus- 
ing the fruits to perish, and the grass to wither, and the 
wells to dry up. Sometimes, too, the great all-seeing 
divinity, in his wrath at the impiety of men, would shoot 
down his scorching arrows, causing pestilence to spread 
over the land. Still other conceptions clustered around 
the sun. Now it was the wonderful treasure-house, into 
which no one could look and live ; and again it was Ixion 
himself, bound on the fiery wheel in punishment for vio- 
lence offered to Here, the queen of the blue air. 

This theory of ancient mythology is not only beautiful 
and plausible, it is, in its essential points, demonstrated. 
It stands on as firm a foundation as Grimm's law in 
philology, or the undulatory theory in molecular physics. 
It is philology which has here enabled us to read the 
primitive thoughts of mankind. A large number of the 



20 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



names of Greek gods and heroes have no meaning in the 
Greek language ; but these names occur also in Sanskrit, 
with plain physical meanings. In the Veda we find 
Zeus or Jupiter (Dyaus-pitar) meaning the sky, and 
Sarameias or Hermes, meaning the breeze of a summer 
morning. We find Athene (Ahana), meaning the light 
of daybreak ; and we are thus enabled to understand why 
the Greek described her as sprung from the forehead of 
Zeus. There too we find Helena (Sarama), the fickle 
twilight, whom the Panis, or night-demons, who serve as 
the prototypes of the Hellenic Paris, strive to seduce 
from her allegiance to the solar monarch. Even Achilleus 
(Aharyu) again confronts us, with his captive Briseis (Bri- 
saya's offspring) ; and the fierce Kerberos (Qarvara) barks 
on Yedic ground in strict conformity to the laws of pho- 
netics.* Now, when the Hindu talked about Father 
Dyaus, or the sleek kine of Siva, he thought of the per- 
sonified sky and clouds ; he had not outgrown the primi- 
tive mental habits of the race. But the Greek, in whose 
language these physical meanings were lost, had long 
before the Homeric epoch come to regard Zeus and 
Hermes, Athene, Helena, Paris, and Achilleus, as mere 
persons, and in most cases the originals of his myths were 
completely forgotten. In the Vedas the Trojan War is 
carried on in the sky, between the bright deities and the 
demons of night ; but the Greek poet, influenced perhaps 
by some dim historical tradition, has located the contest 
on the shore of the Hellespont, and in his mind the 

* Some of these etymologies are attacked by Mr. Mahaffy in his Pro- 
legomena to Ancient History, p. 49. After long consideration I am 
. still disposed to follow Max Mliller in adopting them, with the possible 
exception of Achilleus. With Mr. Mahaffy's suggestion (p. 52) that 
many of the Homeric legends may have " clustered arpund some his- 
torical basis," I fully agree ; as will appear, further on, from my paper 
on " Juventus Mundi." 



THE ORIGINS OF FOLK-LORE. 



21 



actors, though superhuman, are still completely anthro- 
pomorphic. Of the true origin of his epic story he knew 
as little as Euhemeros, or Lord Bacon, or the Abbe" 
Banier. 

After these illustrations, we shall run no risk of being 
misunderstood when we define a myth as, in its origin, 
an explanation, by the uncivilized mind, of some natural 
phenomenon ; not an allegory, not an esoteric symbol, — 
for the ingenuity is wasted which strives to detect in 
myths the remnants of a refined primeval science, — but 
an explanation. Primitive men had no profound science 
to perpetuate by means of allegory, nor were they such 
sorry pedants as to talk in riddles when plain language 
would serve their purpose. Their minds, we may be sure, 
worked like our own, and when they spoke of the far- 
darting sun-god, they meant just what they said, save 
that where we propound a scientific theorem, they con- 
structed a myth.* A thing is said to be explained when 
it is classified with other things with which we are al- 
ready acquainted. That is the only kind of explanation 
of which the highest science is capable. "We explain the 
origin, progress, and ending of a thunder-storm, when we 
classify the phenomena presented by it along with other 
more familiar phenomena of vaporization and condensa- 
tion. But the primitive man explained the same thing 
to his own satisfaction when he had classified it along 
with the well-known phenomena of human volition, by 
constructing a theory of a great black dragon pierced by 

* "Les facultes qui engendrent la mythologie sont les memes que 
celles qui engendront la philosophie, et ce n'est pas sans raison que 
l'lnde et la Grece nous presentent le phenomene de la plus riche my- 
thologie a cote de la plus profonde metaphysique." "La conception de 
la multiplicite dansj-'univers, c'est le polytheisme chez les peuples en- 
fants ; c'est la science chez les peuples arrives a l'age mur." — Kenan, 
Hist, des Langues Semitiques, Tom. I. p, 9. 



22 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



the unerring arrows of a heavenly archer. We consider 
the nature of the stars to a certain extent explained when 
they are classified as suns ; but the Mohammedan com- 
piler of the " Mishkat-ul-Ma'sabih " was content to ex- 
plain them as missiles useful for stoning the Devil ! Now, 
as soon as the old Greek, forgetting the source of his 
conception, began to talk of a human Oidipous slaying a 
leonine Sphinx, and as soon as the Mussulman began, if 
he ever did, to tell his children how the Devil once got 
a good pelting with golden bullets, then both the one and 
the other were talking pure mythology. 

"We are justified, accordingly, in distinguishing between 
a myth and a legend. Though the words are etymologi- 
cally parallel, and though in ordinary discourse we may 
use them interchangeably, yet when strict accuracy is 
required, it is well to keep them separate. And it is 
perhaps needless, save for the sake of completeness, to 
say that both are to be distinguished from stories which 
have been designedly fabricated. The distinction may 
occasionally be subtle, but is usually broad enough. 
Thus, the story that Philip II. murdered his wife Eliza- 
beth, is a misrepresentation ; but the story that the same 
Elizabeth was culpably enamoured of her step-son Don 
Carlos, is a legend. The story that Queen Eleanor saved 
the life of her husband, Edward I., by sucking a wound 
made in his arm by a poisoned arrow, is a legend ; but 
the story that Hercules killed a great robber, Cacus, who 
had stolen his cattle, conceals a physical meaning, and is 
a myth. While a legend is usually confined to one or 
two localities, and is told of not more than one or two 
persons, it is characteristic of a myth that it is spread, in 
one form or another, over a large part of the earth, the 
leading incidents remaining constant, while the names 
and often the motives vary with each locality. This is 



THE ORIGINS OF FOLK-LORE. 



23 



partly due to the immense antiquity of myths, dating as 
they do from a period when many nations, now widely 
separated, had not yet ceased to form one people. Thus, 
many elements of, the myth of the Trojan War are to be 
found in the Kig-Veda ; and the myth of St. George and 
the Dragon is found in all the Aryan nations. But we 
must not always infer that myths have a common descent, 
merely because they resemble each other. We must re- 
member that the proceedings of the uncultivated mind 
are more or less alike in all latitudes, and that the same 
phenomenon might in various places independently give 
rise to similar stories.* The myth of Jack and the Bean- 
stalk is found not only among people of Aryan descent, 
but also among the Zulus of South Africa, and again 
among the American Indians. Whenever we can trace 
a story in this way from one end of the world to the 
other, or through a whole family of kindred nations, we 
are pretty safe in assuming that we are dealing with a 
true myth, and not with a mere legend. 

Applying these considerations to the Tell myth, we at 
once obtain a valid explanation of its origin. The con- 
ception of infallible skill in archery, which underlies such 
a great variety of myths and popular fairy-tales, is origi- 
nally derived from the inevitable victory of the sun over 
his enemies, the, demons of night, winter, and tempest. 
Arrows and spears which never miss their mark, swords 
from whose blow no armour can protect, are invariably 
the weapons of solar divinities or heroes. The shafts of 
Bellerophon never fail to slay the black demon of the 
rain-cloud, and the bolt of Phoibos Chrysaor deals sure 
destruction to the serpent of winter. Odysseus, warring 
against the impious night-heroes, who have endeavoured 

* Cases coming under this head are discussed further on, in my paper 
on " Myths of the Barbaric World." 



24 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



throughout ten long years or hours of darkness to seduce 
from her allegiance his twilight-bride, the weaver of the 
never-finished web of violet clouds, — Odysseus, stripped 
of his beggar's raiment and endowed with fresh youth 
and beauty by the dawn-goddess, Athene, engages in 
no doubtful conflict as he raises the bow which none but 
himself can bend. Nor is there less virtue in the spear 
of Achilleus, in the swords of Perseus and Sigurd, in 
Roland's stout blade Durandal, or in the brand Excali- 
bur, with which Sir Bedivere was so loath to part. All 
these are solar weapons, and so, too, are the arrows of 
Tell and Palnatoki, Egil and Hemingr, and William of 
Cloudeslee, whose surname proclaims him an inhabitant 
of the Phaiakian land. William Tell, whether of Cloud- 
land or of Altdorf, is the last reflection of the beneficent 
divinity of daytime and summer, constrained for a while 
to obey the caprice of the powers of cold and darkness, 
as Apollo served Laomedon, and Herakles did the bid- 
ding of Eurystheus. His solar character is well pre- 
served, even in the sequel of the Swiss legend, in which 
he appears no less skilful as a steersman than as an 
archer, and in which, after traversing, like Dagon, the 
tempestuous sea of night, he leaps at daybreak in re- 
gained freedom upon the land, and strikes down the 
oppressor who has held him in bondage. 

But the sun, though ever victorious in open contest 
with his enemies, is nevertheless not invulnerable. At 
times he succumbs to treachery, is bound by the frost- 
giants, or slain by the demons of darkness. The poisoned 
shirt of the cloud-fiend Nessos is fatal even to the mighty 
Herakles, and the prowess of Siegfried at last fails to 
save him from the craft of Hagen. In Achilleus and 
Meleagros we see the unhappy solar hero doomed to toil 
for the profit of others, and to be cut off by an untimely 



THE ORIGINS OF FOLK-LORE. 



25 



death. The more fortunate Odysseus, who lives to a ripe 
old age, and triumphs again and again over all the powers 
of darkness, must nevertheless yield to the craving desire 
to visit new cities and look upon new works of strange 
men, until at last he is swallowed up in the western sea. 
That the unrivalled navigator of the celestial ocean should 
disappear beneath the western waves is as intelligible as 
it is that the horned Venus or Astarte should rise from 
the sea in the far east. It is perhaps less obvious that 
winter should be so frequently symbolized as a thorn or 
sharp instrument. Achilleus dies by an arrow-wound in 
the heel ; the thigh of Adonis is pierced by the boar's 
tusk, while Odysseus escapes with an ugly scar, which 
afterwards secures his recognition by his old servant, the 
dawn-nymph Eurykleia ; Sigurd is slain by a thorn, and 
Balder by a sharp sprig of mistletoe ; and in the myth 
of the Sleeping Beauty, the earth-goddess sinks into her 
long winter sleep when pricked by the point of the spin- 
dle. In her cosmic palace, all is locked in icy repose, 
naught thriving save the ivy which defies the cold, until 
the kiss of the golden-haired sun-god reawakens life and 
activity. 

The wintry sleep of nature is symbolized in innumer- 
able stories of spell-bound maidens and fair-featured 
youths, saints, martyrs, and heroes. Sometimes it is the 
sun, sometimes the earth, that is supposed to slumber. 
Among the American Indians the sun-god Michabo is 
said to sleep through the winter months; and at the 
time of the falling leaves, by way of composing himself 
for his nap, he fills his great pipe and divinely smokes ; 
the blue clouds, gently floating over the landscape, fill 
the air with the haze of Indian summer. In the Greek 
myth the shepherd Endymion preserves his freshness in 
a perennial slumber. The German Siegfried, pierced by 
2 



26 MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 

the thorn of winter, is sleeping until he shall be again 
called forth to fight. In Switzerland, by the Vierwald- 
stattersee, three Tells are awaiting the hour when their 
country shall again need to be delivered from the oppres- 
sor. Charlemagne is reposing in the Untersberg, sword 
in hand, waiting for the coming of Antichrist; Olger 
Danske similarly dreams away his time in Avallon ; and 
in a lofty mountain in Thuringia, the great Emperor 
Frederic Barbarossa slumbers with his knights around 
him, until the time comes for him to sally forth and raise 
Germany to the first rank among the kingdoms of the 
world. The same story is told of Olaf Tryggvesson, of 
Don Sebastian of Portugal, and of the Moorish King 
Boabdil. The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, having taken 
refuge in a cave from the persecutions of the heathen 
Decius, slept one hundred and sixty-four years, and 
awoke to find a Christian emperor on the throne. The 
monk of Hildesheim, in the legend so beautifully ren- 
dered by Longfellow, doubting how with God a thousand 
years ago could be as yesterday, listened three minutes 
entranced by the singing of a bird in the forest, and 
found, on waking from his revery, that a thousand years 
had flown. To the same family of legends belong the 
notion that St. John is sleeping at Ephesus until the last 
days of the world; the myth of the enchanter Merlin, 
spell-bound by Vivien ; the story of the Cretan philoso- 
pher Epimenides, who dozed away fifty-seven years 
in a cave ; and Eip Van Winkle's nap in the Cats- 
kills* 

We might go on almost indefinitely citing household 
tales of wonderful sleepers ; but, on the principle of the 

* A collection of these interesting legends may be found in Baring- 
Gould's " Curious Myths of the Middle Ages," of which work this papei 
was originally a review. 



THE ORIGINS OF FOLK-LORE. 



27 



association of opposites, we are here reminded of sundry- 
cases of marvellous life and wakefulness, illustrated in 
the Wandering Jew ; the dancers of Kolbeck ; Joseph of 
Arimathsea with the Holy Grail; the Wild Huntsman, 
who to all eternity chases the red deer ; the Captain of 
the Phantom Ship ; the classic Tithonos ; and the Man in 
the Moon. 

The lunar spots have afforded a rich subject for the 
play of human fancy. Plutarch wrote a treatise on 
them, but the myth-makers had been before him. 
" Every one," says Mr. Baring-Gould, " knows that 
the moon is inhabited by a man with a bundle of 
sticks on his back, who has been exiled thither for 
many centuries, and who is so far off that he is beyond 
the reach of death. He has once visited this earth, if 
the nursery rhyme is to be credited when it asserts that 

? The Man in the Moon 
Came down too soon 
And asked his way to Norwich ' ; 

but whether he ever reached that city the same authority 
does not state." Dante calls him Cain ; Chaucer has him 
put up there as a punishment for theft, and gives him a 
thorn-bush to carry ; Shakespeare also loads him with 
the thorns, but by way of compensation gives him a dog 
for a companion. Ordinarily, however, his offence is 
stated to have been, not stealing, but Sabbath-breaking, 
— an idea derived from the Old Testament. Like the 
man mentioned in the Book of Numbers, he is caught 
gathering sticks on the Sabbath ; and, as an example to 
mankind, he is condemned to stand forever in the moon, 
with his bundle on his back. Instead of a dog, one Ger- 
man version places with him a woman, whose crime was 
churning butter on Sunday. She carries her butter-tub ; 
and this brings us to Mother Goose again : — 



28 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



" Jack and Jill went np the Mil 
To get a pail of water. 
Jack fell down and broke his crown, 
And Jill came tumbling after." 

This may read like mere nonsense ; but there is a point 
of view from which it may be safely said that there is 
very little absolute nonsense in the world. The story of 
Jack and Jill is a venerable one. In Icelandic mythology 
we read that Jack and Jill were two children whom the 
moon once kidnapped and carried np to heaven. They 
had been drawing water in a bucket, which they were 
carrying by means of a pole placed across their shoulders ; 
and in this attitude they have stood to the present day 
in the moon. Even now this explanation of the moon- 
spots is to be heard from the mouths of Swedish peasants. 
They fall away one after the other, as the moon wanes, 
and their water-pail symbolizes the supposed connection 
of the moon with rain-storms. Other forms of the myth 
occur in Sanskrit. 

The moon-goddess, or Aphrodite, of the ancient Ger- 
mans, was called Horsel, or Ursula, who figures in 
Christian mediaeval mythology as a persecuted saint, 
attended by a troop of eleven thousand virgins, who all 
suffer martyrdom as they journey from England to Co- 
logne. The meaning of the myth is obvious. In German 
mythology, England is the Phaiakian land of clouds and 
phantoms; the succuhus, leaving her lover before day- 
break, excuses herself on the plea that " her mother is 
calling her in England." * The companions of Ursula 
are the pure stars, who leave the cloudland and suffer 
martyrdom as they approach the regions of day. In the 
Christian tradition, Ursula is the pure Artemis ; but, in 

* See Procopius, De Bello Gothico, IV. 20 ; Villemarque, Barzas 
Breiz, I. 136. As a child I was instructed by an old nurse that Va? 
Diemen's Land is the home of ghosts and departed spirits. 



THE ORIGINS OF FOLK-LORE. 



29 



accordance with her ancient character, she is likewise the 
sensual Aphrodite, who haunts the Yenusberg ; and this 
brings us to the story of Tannhauser. 

The Horselberg, or mountain of Venus, lies in Thu- 
ringia, between Eisenach and Gotha. High up on its 
slope yawns a cavern, the Hbrselloch, or cave of Venus, 
within which is heard a muffled roar, as of subterranean 
water. From this cave, in old times, the frightened in- 
habitants of the neighbouring valley would hear at night 
wild moans and cries issuing, mingled with peals of 
demon-like laughter. Here it was believed that Venus 
held her court ; " and there were not a few who declared 
that they had seen fair forms of female beauty beckoning 
them from the mouth of the chasm."* Tannhauser was 
a Frankish knight and famous minnesinger, who, trav- 
elling at twilight past the Horselberg, " saw a white 
glimmering figure of matchless beauty standing before 
him and beckoning him to her." Leaving his horse, he 
went up to meet her, whom he knew to be none other 
than Venus. He descended to her palace in the heart of 
the mountain, and there passed seven years in careless 
revelry. Then, stricken with remorse and yearning for 
another glimpse of the pure light of day, he called in 
agony upon the Virgin Mother, who took compassion on 
him and released him. He sought a village church, and 
to priest after priest confessed his sin, without obtaining 
absolution, until finally he had recourse to the Pope. But 
the holy father, horrified at the enormity of his misdoing, 
declared that guilt such as his could never be remitted : 
sooner should the staff in his hand grow green and blos- 
som. "Then Tannhauser, full of despair and with his 
soul darkened, went away, and returned to the only 
asylum open to him, the Venusberg. But lo ! three days 

* Baring-Gould, Curious Myths, Vol. I. p. 197. 



30 



MYTHS AXD MYTH-MAKERS. 



after he had gone, Pope Urban discovered that his pas- 
toral staff had put forth buds and had burst into flower. 
Then he sent messengers after Tannhauser, and they 
reached the Horsel vale to hear that a wayworn man, 
with haggard brow and bowed head, had just entered the 
Horselloch. Since then Tannhauser has not been seen." 
(p. 201.) 

As Mr. Baring-Gould rightly observes, this sad legend, 
in its Christianized form, is doubtless descriptive of the 
struggle between the new and the old faiths. The knight- 
ly Tannhauser, satiated with pagan sensuality, turns to 
Christianity for relief, but, repelled by the hypocrisy, 
pride, and lack of sympathy of its ministers, gives up in 
despair, and returns to drown his anxieties in his old 
debauchery. 

But this is not the primitive form of the myth, which 
recurs in the folk-lore of every people of Aryan descent. 
Who, indeed, can read it without being at once reminded 
of Thomas of Erceldoune (or Hbrsel-hill), entranced by 
the sorceress of the Eilden ; of the nightly visits of Xunia 
to the grove of the nymph Egeria ; of Odysseus held cap- 
tive by the Lady Kalypso ; and, last but not least, of the 
delightful Arabian tale of Prince Ahmed and the Peri 
Banou ? On his westward journey, Odysseus is ensnared 
and kept in temporary bondage by the amorous nymph 
of darkness, Kalypso (fcaXvTTTco, to veil or cover). So the 
zone of the moon-goddess Aphrodite inveigles all-seeing 
Zeus to treacherous slumber on Mount Ida ; and by a 
similar sorcery Tasso's great hero is lulled in unseemly 
idleness in Armida's golden paradise, at the western verge 
of the world. The disappearance of Tannhauser behind 
the moonlit cliff, lured by Venus Ursula, the pale goddess 
of night, is a precisely parallel circumstance. 

But solar and lunar phenomena are by no means the 



THE ORIGINS OF FOLK-LORE. 



31 



only sources of popular mythology. Opposite my writ- 
ing-table hangs a quaint German picture, illustrating 
Goethe's ballad of the Erlking, in which the whole 
wild pathos of the story is compressed into one supreme 
moment ; we see the fearful, half-gliding rush of the Erl- 
king, his long, spectral arms outstretched to grasp the 
child, the frantic gallop of the horse, the alarmed father 
clasping his darling to his bosom in convulsive embrace, 
the siren-like elves hovering overhead, to lure the little 
soul with their weird harps. There can be no better 
illustration than is furnished by this terrible scene of the 
magic power of mythology to invest the simplest physical 
phenomena with the most intense human interest; for 
the true significance of the whole picture is contained in 
the father's address to his child, 

"Sei ruhig, bleibe ruhig, mein Kind ; 
In diirren Blattern sauselt der Wind." 

The story of the Piper of Hamelin, well known in the 
version of Eobert Browning, leads to the same conclusion. 
In 1284 the good people of Hamelin could obtain no rest, 
night or day, by reason of the direful host of rats which 
infested their town. One day came a strange man in a 
bunting-suit, and offered for five hundred guilders to rid 
the town of the vermin. The people agreed : whereupon 
the man took out a pipe and piped, and instantly all the 
rats in town, in an army which blackened the face of the 
earth, came forth from their haunts, and followed the 
piper until he piped them to the river Weser, where they 
all jumped in and were drowned. But as soon as the 
torment was gone, the townsfolk refused to pay the piper, 
on the ground that he was evidently a wizard. He went 
away, vowing vengeance, and on St. John's day reap- 
peared, and putting his pipe to his mouth blew a dif- 
ferent air. Whereat all the little, plump, rosy-cheeked, 



32 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



golden-haired children came merrily running after him, 
their parents standing aghast, not knowing what to do, 
while he led them up a hill in the neighbourhood. A door 
opened in the mountain-side, through which he led them 
in, and they never were seen again ; save one lame boy, 
who hobbled not fast enough to get in before the door 
shut, and who lamented for the rest of his life that he 
had not been able to share the rare luck of his comrades. 
In the street through which this procession passed no 
music was ever afterwards allowed to be played. For a 
long time the town dated its public documents from this 
fearful calamity, and many authorities have treated it as 
an historical event.* Similar stories are told of other 
towns in Germany, and, strange to say, in remote Abys- 
sinia also. Wesleyan peasants in England believe that 
angels pipe to children who are about to die; and in 
Scandinavia, youths are said to have been enticed away 
by the songs of elf-maidens. In Greece, the sirens by 
their magic lay allured voyagers to destruction; and 
Orpheus caused the trees and dumb beasts to follow him. 
Here we reach the explanation. For Orpheus is the 
wind sighing through untold acres of pine forest. " The 
piper is no other than the wind, and the ancients held 
that in the wind were the souls of the dead." To this day 
the English peasantry believe that they hear the wail of 
the spirits of unbaptized children, as the gale sweeps 
past their cottage doors. The Greek Hermes resulted 
from the fusion of two deities. He is the sun and also 
the wind ; and in the latter capacity he bears away the 
souls of the dead. So the Norse Odin, who like Hermes 
fulfils a double function, is supposed to rush at night 
over the tree-tops, " accompanied by the scudding train 
of brave men's spirits." And readers of recent French 

* Hence perhaps the adage, "Always remember to pay the piper." 



THE ORIGINS OF FOLK-LORE. 



33 



literature cannot fail to remember Erckmann-Chatrian's 
terrible story of the wild huntsman Vittikab, and how he 
sped through the forest, carrying away a young girl's 
soul. 

Thus, as Tannhauser is the Northern Ulysses, so is 
Goethe's Erlking none other than the Piper of Hamelin. 
And the piper, in turn, is the classic Hermes or Orpheus, " 
the counterpart of the Finnish Wainamoinen and the 
Sanskrit Gunadhya. His wonderful pipe is the horn of 
Oberon, the lyre of Apollo (who, like the piper, was a 
rat-killer), the harp stolen by Jack when he climbed 
the bean-stalk to the ogre's castle.* And the father, in 
Goethe's ballad, is no more than right when he assures 
his child that the siren voice which tempts him is but 
the rustle of the wind among the dried leaves; for from 
such a simple class of phenomena arose this entire fam- 
ily of charming legends. 

But why does the piper, who is a leader of souls (Psy- 
chopompos), also draw rats after him ? In answering this 
we shall have occasion to note that the ancients by no 
means shared that curious prejudice against the brute 
creation which is indulged in by modern anti-Darwin- 
ians. In many countries, rats and mice have been re- 
garded as sacred animals; but in Germany they were 
thought to represent the human soul. One story out of 
a hundred must suffice to illustrate this. " In Thuringia, 
at Saalfeld, a servant-girl fell asleep whilst her compan- 
ions were shelling nuts. They observed a little red 
mouse creep from her mouth and run out of the window. 

* And it reappears as the mysterious lyre of the Gaelic musician, 
who 

" Could harp a fish out o' the water, 
Or bluid out of a stane, 
Or milk out of a maiden's breast, 
That bairns had never nane." 



34 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



One of the fellows present shook the sleeper, but could 
riot wake her, so he moved her to another place. Pres- 
ently the mouse ran back to the former place and dashed 
about, seeking the girl ; not finding her, it vanished ; at 
the same moment the girl died."* This completes the 
explanation of the piper, and it also furnishes the key to 
the horrible story of Bishop Hatto. I 
This wicked prelate lived on the bank of the Rhine, 
in the middle of which stream he possessed a tower, now 
pointed out to travellers as the Mouse Tower. In the 
year 970 there was a dreadful famine, and people came 
from far and near craving sustenance out of the Bishop's 
ample and well-filled granaries. Well, he told them all 
to go into the barn, and when they had got in there, as 
many as could stand, he set fire to the barn and burnt 
them all up, and went home to eat a merry supper. But 
when he arose next morning, he heard that an army of 
rats had eaten all the corn in his granaries, and was now 
advancing to storm the palace. Looking from his win- 
dow, he saw the roads and fields dark with them, as they 
came with fell purpose straight toward his mansion. In 
frenzied terror he took his boat and rowed out to the 
tower in the river. But it was of no use : down into the 
water marched the rats, and swam across, and scaled the 
walls, and gnawed through the stones, and came swarm- 
mg m about the shrieking Bishop, and ate him up flesh 
bones, and all Now, bearing in mind what was said 
above, there can be no doubt that these rats were the 
souls of those whom the Bishop had murdered. There 
are many versions of the story in different Teutonic 
countries, and in some of them the avenging rats or mice 
issue dnectly, by a strange metamorphosis, from the 
corpses of the victims. St. Gertrude, moreover, the 

* Baring-Gould, Curious Myths, Vol. II. p. 159. 



THE ORIGINS OF FOLK-LORE. 



35 



heathen Holda, was symbolized as a mouse, and was said 
to lead an army of mice ; she was the receiver of chil- 
dren's souls. Odin, also, in his character of a Psycho- 
pompos, was followed by a host of rats.* 

As the souls of the departed are symbolized as rats, so 
is the psychopomp himself often figured as a dog. Sara- 
meias, the Vedic counterpart of Hermes and Odin, some- 
times appears invested with canine attributes ; and count- 
less other examples go to show that by the early Aryan 
mind the howling wind was conceived as a great dog or 
wolf. As the fearful beast was heard speeding by the 
windows or over the house-top, the inmates trembled, for 
none knew but his own soul might forthwith be required 
of him. Hence, to this day, among ignorant people, the 
howling of a dog under the window is supposed to por- 
tend a death in the family. It is the fleet greyhound of 
Hermes, come to escort the soul to the river Styx.-)- 

But the wind-god is not always so terrible. Nothing 
can be more transparent than the phraseology of the 
Homeric Hymn, in which Hermes is described as acquir- 
ing the strength of a giant while yet a babe in the cradle, 
as sallying out and stealing the cattle (clouds) of Apollo, 
and driving them helter-skelter in various directions, then 
as crawling through the keyhole, and with a mocking 
laugh shrinking into his cradle. He is the Master Thief, 
who can steal the burgomaster's horse from under him 
and his wife's mantle from off her back, the prototype 
not only of the crafty architect of Ehampsinitos, but even 
of the ungrateful slave who robs Sancho of his mule in 
the Sierra Morena. He furnishes in part the conceptions 

* Perhaps we may trace back to this source the frantic terror which 
Irish servant-girls often manifest at sight of a mouse. 

* In Persia a dog is brought to the bedside of the person who is 
iying, in order that the soul may be sure of a prompt escort. The 
came custom exists in India. Breal, Hercule et Cacus, p. 123. 



36 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



of Boots and Keynard ; he is the prototype of Paul Pry 
and peeping Tom of Coventry; and in virtue of his 
ability to contract or expand himself at pleasure, he is 
both the Devil in the Norse Tale,* whom the lad per- 
suades to enter a walnut, and the Arabian Efreet, whom 
the fisherman releases from the bottle. 

The very interesting series of myths and popular super- 
stitions suggested by the storm-cloud and the lightning 
must be reserved for a future occasion. When carefully 
examined, they will richly illustrate the conclusion which 
is the result of the present inquiry, that the marvellous 
tales and quaint superstitions current in every Aryan 
household have a common origin with the classic legends 
of gods and heroes, which formerly were alone thought 
worthy of the student's serious attention. These stories 
— some of them familiar to us in infancy, others the 
delight of our maturer years — constitute the debris, or 
alluvium, brought down by the stream of tradition from 
the distant highlands of ancient mythology. 

* The Devil, who is proverbially " active in a gale of wind," is none 
other than Hermes. 

September, 1870. 



TEE DESCENT OF FIRE. 



37 



II. 

THE DESCENT OF FIEE. 

IN the course of my last summer's vacation, which was 
spent at a small inland village, I came upon an un- 
expected illustration of the tenacity with which con- 
ceptions descended from prehistoric antiquity have 
now and then kept their hold upon life. While sit- 
ting one evening under the trees by the roadside, my 
attention was called to the unusual conduct of half a 
dozen men and boys who were standing opposite. An 
elderly man was moving slowly up and down the road, 
holding with both hands a forked twig of hazel, shaped 
like the letter Y inverted. "With his palms turned up- 
ward, he held in each hand a branch of the twig in such 
a way that the shank pointed upward ; but every few 
moments, as he halted over a certain spot, the twig would 
gradually bend downwards until it had assumed the like- 
ness of a Y in its natural position, where it would remain 
pointing to something in the ground beneath. One by 
one the bystanders proceeded to try the experiment, but 
with no variation in the result. Something in the ground 
seemed to fascinate the bit of hazel, for it could not pass 
over that spot without bending down and pointing to it. 

My thoughts reverted at once to J acques Aymar and 
Dousterswivel, as I perceived that these men were 
engaged in sorcery. During the long drought more than 
half the wells in the village had become dry, and here 
was an attempt to make good the loss by the aid of the 



3 8 MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 

god Thor. These men were seeking water with a divin- 
ing-rod. Here, alive before my eyes, was a superstitious 
observance, which I had supposed long since dead and 
forgotten by all men except students interested in my- 
thology. 

As I crossed the road to take part in the ceremony a 
farmer's boy came up, stoutly affirming his incredulity, 




and offering to show the company how he could carry 
the rod motionless across the charmed spot. But when 
he came to take the weird twig he trembled with an ill- 
defined feeling of insecurity as to the soundness of his 
conclusions, and when he stood over the supposed rivulet 
the rod bent in spite of him, — as was not so very strange. 
For, with all his vague scepticism, the honest lad had not, 
and could not be supposed to have, the foi scientifique of 
which Littre speaks.* 

* " II faut que la cceur devienne ancien parmi les aneiennes choses, 
et la plenitude de l'histoire ne se devoile qu'a celui qui descend, ainsj 
dispose, dans le passe. Mais il faut que l'esprit demeure moderne, et 
n'oublie jamais qu'il n'y a pour lui d' autre foi que la foi scientifique.' 
— Littb£. 



THE DESCENT OF FIRE. 



39 



Hereupon I requested leave to try the rod ; but some- 
thing in my manner seemed at once to excite the suspi- 
cion and scorn of the sorcerer. " Yes, take it/' said he, 
with uncalled-for vehemence, "but you can't stop it; 
there 's water below here, and you can't help its bending, 
if you break your back trying to hold it." So he gave 
me the twig, and awaited, with a smile which was meant 
to express withering sarcasm, the discomfiture of the sup- 
posed scoffer. But when I proceeded to walk four or 
five times across the mysterious place, the rod pointing 
steadfastly toward the zenith all the while, our friend 
became grave and began to philosophize. " Well," said 
he, " you see, your temperament is peculiar ; the condi- 
tions ain't favourable in your case ; there are some people 
who never can work these things. But there 's water 
below here, for all that, as you '11 find, if you dig for it ; 
there 's nothing like a hazel-rod for finding out water." 

Very true : there are some persons who never can make 
such things work ; who somehow always encounter " un- 
favourable conditions " when they wish to test the mar- 
vellous powers of a clairvoyant; who never can make 
" Planchette " move in conformity to the requirements of 
any known alphabet ; who never see ghosts, and never 
have " presentiments," save such as are obviously due to 
association of ideas. The ill-success of these persons is 
commonly ascribed to their lack of faith; but, in the major- 
ity of cases, it might be more truly referred to the strength 
of their faith, — faith in the constancy of nature, and in 
the adequacy of ordinary human experience as inter- 
preted by science.* La foi scientifique is an excellent 
preventive against that obscure, though not uncommon, 

* For an admirable example of scientific self-analysis tracing one of 
these illusions to its psychological sources, see the account of Dr. Laza- 
rus, in Taine, De 1' Intelligence, Yol. I. pp. 121 - 125. 



40 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



kind of self-deception which enables wooden tripods to 
write and tables to tip and hazel-twigs to twist upside- 
down, without the conscious intervention of the per- 
former. It was this kind of faith, no doubt, which caused 
the discomfiture of Jacques Aymar on his visit to Paris,* 
and which has in late years prevented persons from ob- 
taining the handsome prize offered by the French Acad- 
emy for the first authentic case of clairvoyance. 

But our village friend, though perhaps constructively 
right in his philosophizing, was certainly very defective 
in his acquaintance with the time-honoured art of rhab- 
domancy. Had he extended his inquiries so as to cover 
the field of Indo-European tradition, he would have 
learned that the mountain-ash, the mistletoe, the white 
and black thorn, the Hindu asvattha, and several other 
woods, are quite as efficient as the hazel for the purpose 
of detecting water in times of drought ; and in due course 
of time he would have perceived that the divining-rod 
itself is but one among a large class of things to which 
popular belief has ascribed, along with other talismanic 
properties, the power of opening the ground or cleaving 
rocks, in order to reveal hidden treasures. Leaving him 
in peace, then, with his bit of forked hazel, to seek for 
cooling springs in some future thirsty season, let us en- 
deavour to elucidate the origin of this curious supersti- 
tion. 

The detection of subterranean water is by no means 
the only use to which the divining-rod has been put. 
Among the ancient Frisians it was regularly used for the 
detection of criminals ; and the reputation of Jacques 

* See the story of Aymar in Baring-Gould, Curious Myths, Vol. I. 
pp. 57-77. The learned author attributes the discomfiture to the un- 
congenial Parisian environment ; which is a style of reasoning much like 
that of my village sorcerer, I fear. 



THE DESCENT OF FIRE. 



41 



Aymar was won by his discovery of the perpetrator of a 
horrible murder at Lyons. Throughout Europe it has 
been used from time immemorial by miners for ascertain- 
ing the position of veins of metal ; and in the days when 
talents were wrapped in napkins and buried in the field, 
instead of being exposed to the risks of financial specula- 
tion, the divining-rod was employed by persons covetous 
of their neighbours' wealth. If Boulatruelle had lived 
in the sixteenth century, he would have taken a forked 
stick of hazel when he went to search for the buried 
treasures of Jean Valjean. It has also been applied to 
the cure of disease, and has been kept in households, like 
a wizard's charm, to insure general good-fortune and im- 
munity from disaster. 

As we follow the conception further into the elf-land 
of popular tradition, we come upon a rod which not only 
points out the situation of hidden treasure, but even splits 
open the ground and reveals the mineral wealth contained 
therein. In German legend, " a shepherd, who was driv- 
ing his flock over the Ilsenstein, having stopped to rest, 
leaning on his staff, the mountain suddenly opened, for 
there was a springwort in his staff without his knowing 
it, and the princess [Use] stood before him. She bade 
him follow her, and when he was inside the mountain 
she told him to take as much gold as he pleased. The 
shepherd filled all his pockets, and was going away, when 
the princess called after him, ' Forget not the best.' So, 
thinking she meant that he had not taken enough, he 
filled his hat also ; but what she meant was his staff with 
the springwort, which he had laid against the wall as 
soon as he stepped in. But now, just as he was going 
out at the opening, the rock suddenly slammed together 
and cut him in two." * 



* Kelly, Indo-European Folk-Lore, p. 177. 



42 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



Here the rod derives its marvellous properties from the 
enclosed springwort, but in many cases a leaf or flowei 
is itself competent to open the hillside. The little blue 
flower, forget-me-not, about which so many sentimental 
associations have clustered, owes its name to the legends 
told of its talismanic virtues.*)- A man, travelling on a 
lonely mountain, picks up a little blue flower and sticks 
it in his hat. Forthwith an iron door opens, showing up 
a lighted passage-way, through which the man advances 
into a magnificent hall, where rubies and diamonds and 
all other kinds of gems are lying piled in great heaps on 
the floor. As he eagerly fills his pockets his hat drops 
from his head, and when he turns to go out the little 
flower calls after him, " Forget me not ! " He turns back 
and looks around, but is too bewildered with his good 
fortune to think of his bare head or of the luck-flower 
which he has let fall. He selects several more of the 
finest jewels he can find, and again starts to go out ; but 
as he passes through the door the mountain closes amid 
the crashing of thunder, and cuts off one of his heels. 
Alone, in the gloom of the forest, he searches in vain for 
the mysterious door : it has disappeared forever, and the 
traveller goes on his way, thankful, let us hope, that he 
has fared no worse. 

Sometimes it is a white lady, like the Princess Use, 
who invites the finder of the luck-flower to help himself 
to her treasures, and who utters the enigmatical warning. 
The mountain where the event occurred may be found 
almost anywhere in Germany, and one just like it stood 
in Persia, in the golden prime of Haroun Airaschid. In 
the story of the Forty Thieves, the mere name of the 
plant sesame serves as a talisman to open and shut the 

t The story of the luck-flower is well told in verse by Mr. Baring- 
Gould, in his Silver Store, p. 115, seq. 



THE DESCENT OF FIRE. 



43 



secret door which leads into the robbers' cavern; and 
when the avaricious Cassim Baba, absorbed in the con- 
templation of the bags of gold and bales of rich merchan- 
dise, forgets the magic formula, he meets no better fat& 
than the shepherd of the Ilsenstein. In the story of 
Prince Ahmed, it is an enchanted arrow which guides 
the young adventurer through the hillside to the grotto 
of the Peri Banou. In the tale of Baba Abdallah, it is an 
ointment rubbed on the eyelid which reveals at a single 
glance all the treasures hidden in the bowels of the earth. 

The ancient Eomans also had their rock-breaking plant, 
called Saxifraga, or "sassafras." And the further we 
penetrate into this charmed circle of traditions the more 
.evident does it appear that the power of cleaving rocks 
or shattering hard substances enters, as a primitive ele- 
ment, into the conception of these treasure-showing talis- 
mans. Mr. Baring-Gould has given an excellent account 
of the rabbinical legends concerning the wonderful scha- 
mir, by the aid of which Solomon was said to have built 
his temple. From Asmodeus, prince of the Jann, Bena- 
iah, the son of Jehoiada, wrested the secret of a worm no 
bigger than a barley-corn, which could split the hardest 
substance. This worm was called schamir. " If Solomon 
desired to possess himself of the worm, he must find the 
nest of the moor-hen, and cover it with a plate of glass, 
so that the mother bird could not get at her young with- 
out breaking the glass. She would seek schamir for the 
purpose, and the worm must be obtained from her." As 
the Jewish king did need the worm in order to hew the 
stones for that temple which was to be built without 
sound of hammer, or axe, or any tool of iron,* he sent 
Benaiah to obtain it. According to another account, 
schamir was a mystic stone which enabled Solomon to 

* 1 Kings vi. 7. 



44 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



penetrate the earth in search of mineral wealth. Di- 
rected by a Jinni, the wise king covered a raven's eggs 
with a plate of crystal, and thus obtained schamir which 
the bird brought in order to break the plate.* 

In these traditions, which may possibly be of Aryan 
descent, due to the prolonged intercourse between the 
Jews and the Persians, a new feature is added to those 
before enumerated : the rock-splitting talisman is always 
found in the possession of a bird. The same feature in 
the myth reappears on Aryan soil. The springwort, 
whose marvellous powers we have noticed in the case of 
the Ilsenstein shepherd, is obtained, according to Pliny, 
by stopping up the hole in a tree where a woodpecker 
keeps its young. The bird flies away, and presently re- 
turns with the springwort, which it applies to the plug, 
causing it to shoot out with a loud explosion. The same 
account is given in German folk-lore. Elsewhere, as in 
Iceland, Normandy, and ancient Greece, the bird is an 
eagle, a swallow, an ostrich, or a hoopoe. 

In the Icelandic and Pomeranian myths the schamir, 
or " raven -stone," also renders its possessor invisible, — 
a property which it shares with one of the treasure-find- 
ing plants, the fern.-)- In this respect it resembles the 
ring of Gyges, as in its divining and rock-splitting quali- 
ties it resembles that other ring which the African magi- 

* Compare the Mussulman account of the building of the temple, in 
Baring-Gould, Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets, pp. 337? 338. 
And see the story of Diocletian's ostrich, Swan, Gesta Romanorum, ed. 
Wright, Vol. I. p. lxiv. See also the pretty story of the knight un- 
justly imprisoned, id. p. cii. 

+ "We have the receipt of fern-seed. ' We walk invisible." — 
Shakespeare, Henry IY. See Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, 
p. 98. 

According to one North German tradition, the luck-flower also wiU 
make its finder invisible at pleasure. But, as the myth shrewdly adds, 
it is absolutely essential that the flower be found by accident : he who 



THE DESCENT OF FIRE. 



45 



cian gave to Aladdin, to enable him to descend into the 
cavern where stood the wonderful lamp. 

In the North of Europe schamir appears strangely and 
grotesquely metamorphosed. The hand of a man that 
has been hanged, when dried and prepared with certain 
weird unguents and set on fire, is known as the Hand 
of Glory ; and as it not only bursts open all safe-locks, 
but also lulls to sleep all persons within the circle of its 
influence, it is of course invaluable to thieves and burg- 
lars. I quote the following story from Thorpe's " North- 
ern Mythology " : " Two fellows once came to Huy, who 
pretended to be exceedingly fatigued, and when they had 
supped would not retire to a sleeping-room, but begged 
their host would allow them to take a nap on the hearth. 
But the maid-servant, who did not like the looks of the 
two guests, remained by the kitchen door and peeped 
through a chink, when she saw that one of them drew a 
thief's hand from his pocket, the fingers of which, after 
having rubbed them with an ointment, he lighted, and 
they all burned except one. Again they held this finger 
to the fire, but still it would not burn, at which they 
appeared much surprised, and one said, 'There must 
surely be some one in the house who is not yet asleep.' 
They then hung the hand with its four burning fingers by 
the chimney, and went out to call their associates. But 
the maid followed them instantly and made the door 
fast, then ran up stairs, where the landlord slept, that 
she might wake him, but was unable, notwithstanding 
all her shaking and calling. In the mean time the 
thieves had returned and were endeavouring to enter the 

seeks for it never finds it ! Thus all cavils are skilfully forestalled, even 
if not satisfactorily disposed of. The same kind of reasoning is favoured 
by our modern dealers in mystery : somehow the " conditions " always 
are askew whenever a scientific observer wishes to test their pretensions. 



4 6 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



house by a window, but the maid cast them down from 
the ladder. They then took a different course, and would 
have forced an entrance, had it not occurred to the maid 
that the burning fingers might probably be the cause of 
her master's profound sleep. Impressed with this idea 
she ran to the kitchen and blew them out, when the 
master and his men-servants instantly awoke, and soon 
drove away the robbers." The same event is said to have 
occurred at Stainmore in England ; and Torquemada re- 
lates of Mexican thieves that they carry with them the 
left hand of a woman who has died in her first childbed, 
before which talisman all bolts yield and all opposition 
is benumbed. In 1831 " some Irish thieves attempted to 
commit a robbery on the estate of Mr. Naper, of Lough- 
crew, county Meath. They entered the house armed 
with a dead man's hand with a lighted candle in it, 
believing in the superstitious notion that a candle placed 
in a dead man's hand will not be seen by any but those 
by whom it is used ; and also that if a candle in a dead 
hand be introduced into a house, it will prevent those 
who may be asleep from awaking. The inmates, how- 
ever, were alarmed, and the robbers fled, leaving the hand 
behind them." * 

In the Middle Ages the hand of glory was used, just 
like the divining-rod, for the detection of buried treasures. 

Here, then, we have a large and motley group of 
objects — the forked rod of ash or hazel, the springwort 
and the luck-flower, leaves, worms, stones, rings, and 
dead men's hands — which are for the most part compe- 
tent to open the way into cavernous rocks, and which 
all agree in pointing out hidden wealth. We find, more- 
over, that many of these charmed objects are carried 
about by birds, and that some of them possess, in addi- 
* Henderson, Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties of England, p. 2C2. 



THE DESCENT OF FIRE. 



47 



tion to their generic properties, the specific power of 
benumbing people's senses. What, now, is the common 
origin of this whole group of superstitions ? And since 
mythology has been shown to be the result of primeval 
attempts to explain the phenomena of nature, what natu- 
ral phenomenon could ever have given rise to so many . 
seemingly wanton conceptions ? Hopeless as the prob- 
lem may at first sight seem, it has nevertheless been 
solved. In his great treatise on " The Descent of Fire," 
Dr. Kuhn has shown that all these legends and traditions 
are descended from primitive myths explanatory of the 
lightning and the storm-cloud.* 

To us, who are nourished from childhood on the truths 
revealed by science, the sky is known to be merely an 
optical appearance due to the partial absorption of the 
solar rays in passing through a thick stratum of atmos- 
pheric air ; the clouds are known to be large masses of 
watery vapour, which descend in rain-drops when suffi- 
ciently condensed ; and the lightning is known to be a 
flash of light accompanying an electric discharge. But 
these conceptions are extremely recondite, and have been 
attained only through centuries of philosophizing and 
after careful observation and laborious experiment. To 
the untaught mind of a child or of an uncivilized man, it 
seems far more natural and plausible to regard the sky as 
a solid dome of blue crystal, the clouds as snowy moun- 
tains, or perhaps even as giants or angels, the lightning 
as a flashing dart or a fiery serpent. In point of fact, 
we find that the conceptions actually entertained are 
often far more grotesque than these. I can recollect once 
framing the hypothesis that the flaming clouds of sunset 
were transient apparitions, vouchsafed us by way of warn- 

* Kuhn, Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Gottertranks. Berlin, 
1859. 



4 8 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



ing, of that burning Calvinistic hell with which my 
childish imagination had been unwisely terrified ; * and I 
have known of a four-year-old boy who thought that the 
snowy clouds of noonday were the white robes of the 
angels hung out to dry in the sun.f My little daughter 
is anxious to know whether it is necessary to take a bal- 
loon in order to get to the place where God lives, or 
whether the same end can be accomplished by going to 
the horizon and crawling up the sky ; J the Mohamme- 
dan of old was working at the same problem when he 
called the rainbow the bridge Es-Sirat, over which souls 
must pass on their way to heaven. According to the 
ancient Jew, the sky was a solid plate, hammered out by 
the gods, and spread over the earth in order to keep up 
the ocean overhead ; § but the plate was full of little 
windows, which were opened whenever it became neces- 
sary to let the rain come through. || With equal plausi- 
bility the Greek represented the rainy sky as a sieve in 
which the daughters of Danaos were vainly trying to draw 

* " Saga me forwhan byth seo sunne read on sefen ? Ic the secge, 
forthon heo locath on helle. — Tell me, why is the sun red at even ? 
I tell thee, because she looketh on hell." Thorpe, Analecta Anglo- 
Saxonica, p. 115, apud Tylor, Primitive Culture, "Vol. II. p. 63. Bar- 
baric thought had partly anticipated my childish theory. 

+ " Still in North Germany does the peasant say of thunder, that the 
angels are playing skittles aloft, and of the snow, that they are shaking 
up the feather-beds in heaven." — Baring-Gould, Book of Werewolves, 
p. 172. 

% "The Polynesians imagine that the sky descends at the horizon 
and encloses the earth. Hence they call foreigners papalangi, or ' heav- 
en-bursters,' as having broken in from another world outside." — Max 
Midler, Chips, II. 268. 

§ " Way-yo'hmer 'helohim j^hi raquia n h b e -thok ham-mayim wihi 
mavdil beyn mayim la-mayim. — And said the gods, let there be a ham- 
mered plate in the midst of the waters, and let it be dividing between 
waters and waters." Genesis i. 6. 

|| Genesis vii. 11. 



THE DESCENT OF FIRE. 49 

water ; while to the Hindu the rain-clouds were celestial 
cattle milked by the wind-god. In primitive Aryan lore, 
the sky itself was a blue sea, and the clouds were ships sail- 
ing over it ; and an English legend tells how one of these 
ships once caught its anchor on a gravestone in the 
churchyard, to the great astonishment of the people who 
were coming out of church. Charon's ferry-boat was one 
of these vessels, and another was Odin's golden ship, in 
which the souls of slain heroes were conveyed to Val- 
halla. Hence it was once the Scandinavian practice to 
bury the dead in boats ; and in Altmark a penny is still 
placed in the mouth of the corpse, that it may have the 
means of paying its fare to the ghostly ferryman.* In 
such a vessel drifted the Lady of Shalott on her fatal 
voyage ; and of similar nature was the dusky barge, 
" dark as a funeral-scarf from stem to stern," in which 
Arthur was received by the black-hooded queens.-f- 

But the fact that a natural phenomenon was explained 
in one way did not hinder it from being explained in a 
dozen other ways. The fact that the sun was generally 
regarded as an all-conquering hero did not prevent its 

* See Kelly, Indo-European Folk-Lore, p. 120 ; who states also that 
in Bengal the Garrows burn their dead in a small boat, placed on top of 
the funeral-pile. 

In their character of cows, also, the clouds were regarded as psycho- 
pomps ; and hence it is still a popular superstition that a cow breaking 
into the yard foretokens a death in the family. 

t The sun-god Freyr had a cloud-ship called Skithblathnir, which 
is thus described in Dasent's Prose Edda : "She is so great, that all the 
iEsir, with their weapons and war-gear, may find room on board her " ; 
but " when there is no need of faring on the sea in her, she is made .... 
with so much craft that Freyr may fold her together like a cloth, and 
keep her in his bag." This same virtue was possessed by the fairy 
pavilion which the Peri Banou gave to Ahmed ; the cloud which is no 
bigger than a man's hand may soon overspread the whole heaven, and 
shade the Sultan's army from the solar rays. 



5o 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



being called an egg, an apple, or a frog squatting on the 
waters, or Ixion's wheel, or the eye of Polyphemos, or 
the stone of Sisyphos, which was no sooner pushed up to 
the zenith than it rolled down to the horizon. So the 
sky was not only a crystal dome, or a celestial ocean, but 
it was also the Aleian land through which Bellerophon 
wandered, the country of the Lotos-eaters, or again the 
realm of the Graiai beyond the twilight ; and finally it 
was personified and worshipped as Dyaus or Yaruna, 
the Vedic prototypes of the Greek Zeus and Ouranos. 
The clouds, too, had many other representatives besides 
ships and cows. In a future paper it will be shown that 
they were sometimes regarded as angels or houris ; at 
present it more nearly concerns us to know that they 
appear, throughout all Aryan mythology, under the form 
of birds. It used to be a matter of hopeless wonder to 
me that Aladdin's innocent request for a roc's egg to 
hang in the dome of his palace should have been re- 
garded as a crime worthy of punishment by the loss of 
the wonderful lamp ; the obscurest part of the whole 
affair being perhaps the Jinni's passionate allusion to the 
egg as his master : " Wretch ! dost thou command me to 
bring thee my master, and hang him up in the midst of 
this vaulted dome ? " But the incident is to some extent 
cleared of its mystery when we learn that the roc's egg is 
the bright sun, and that the roc itself is the rushing storm- 
cloud which, in the tale of Sindbad, haunts the sparkling 
starry firmament, symbolized as a valley of diamonds .* 

* Euhemerism has done its best with this bird, representing it as an 
immense vulture or condor or as a reminiscence of the extinct dodo. 
But a Chinese myth, cited by Klaproth, well preserves its true character 
when it describes it as "a bird which in flying obscures the sun, and of 
whose quills are made water-tuns ." See Nouveau Journal Asiatique, 
Tom. XII. p. 235. The big bird in the Norse tale of the " Blue Belt " 
belongs to the same species. 



THE DESCENT OF FIRE. 



51 



According to one Arabic authority, the length of its wings 
is ten thousand fathoms. But in European tradition it 
dwindles from these huge dimensions to the size of an ea- 
gle, a raven, or a woodpecker. Among the birds enumera- 
ted by Kuhn and others as representing the storm-cloud 
are likewise the wren or " kinglet " (French roitelet) ; the 
owl, sacred to Athene ; the cuckoo, stork, and sparrow ; 
and the red-breasted robin, whose name Eobert was 
originally an epithet of the lightning-god Thor. In cer- 
tain parts of France it is still believed that the robbing 
of a wren's nest will render the culprit liable to be struck 
by lightning. The same belief was formerly entertained 
in Teutonic countries with respect to the robin ; and I 
suppose that from this superstition is descended the prev- 
alent notion, which I often encountered in childhood, 
that there is something peculiarly wicked in killing 
robins. 

Now, as the raven or woodpecker, in the various myths 
of schamir, is the dark storm-cloud, so the rock-splitting 
worm or plant or pebble which the bird carries in its 
beak and lets fall to the ground is nothing more or less 
than the flash of lightning carried and dropped by the 
cloud. " If the cloud was supposed to be a great bird, 
the lightnings were regarded as writhing worms or ser- 
pents in its beak. These fiery serpents, eXuclai ypa/jL- 
fioei8co<; (frepo/uLevoi,, are believed in to this day by the 
Canadian Indians, who call the thunder their hissing."* 

But these are not the only mythical conceptions which 
are to be found wrapped up in the various myths of 
schamir and the divining-rod. The persons who told 
these stories were not weaving ingenious allegories about 
thunder-storms ; they were telling stories, or giving utter- 

* Baring-Gould, Curious Myths, Vol. II. p. 146. Compare Tylor, 
Primitive Culture, Vol. II. p. 237, seq. 



52 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



ance to superstitions, of which the original meaning was 
forgotten. The old grannies who, along with a stoical 
indifference to the fate of quails and partridges, used to 
impress upon me the wickedness of killing robins, did 
not add that I should be struck by lightning if I failed 
to heed their admonitions. They had never heard that 
the robin was the bird of Thor ; they merely rehearsed 
the remnant of the superstition which had survived to 
their own times, while the essential part of it had long 
since faded from recollection. The reason for regarding 
a robin's life as more sacred than a partridge's had been 
forgotten; but it left behind, as was natural, a vague 
recognition of that mythical sanctity. The primitive 
meaning of a myth fades away as inevitably as the 
primitive meaning of a word or phrase ; and the rabbins 
who told of a worm which shatters rocks no more 
thought of the writhing thunderbolts than the modern 
reader thinks of oyster-shells when he sees the word 
ostracism, or consciously breathes a prayer as he writes 
the phrase good bye. It is only in its callow infancy that 
the full force of a myth is felt, and its period of luxuriant 
development dates from the time when its physical sig- 
nificance is lost or obscured. It was because the Greek 
had forgotten that Zeus meant the bright sky, that he 
could make him king over an anthropomorphic Olympos. 
The Hindu Dyaus, who carried his significance in his 
name as plainly as the Greek Helios, never attained such 
an exalted position ; he yielded to deities of less obvious 
pedigree, such as Brahma and Vishnu. 

Since, therefore, the myth-tellers recounted merely the 
wonderful stories which their own nurses and grandmas 
had told them, and had no intention of weaving subtle 
allegories or wrapping up a physical truth in mystic 
emblems, it follows that they were not bound to avoid 



THE DESCENT OF FIRE. 53 

incongruities or to preserve a philosophical symmetry in 
their narratives. In the great majority of complex 
myths, no such symmetry is to be found. A score of 
different mythical conceptions would get wrought into 
the same story, and the attempt to pull them apart and 
construct a single harmonious system of conceptions out 
of the pieces must often end in ingenious absurdity. If 
Odysseus is unquestionably the sun, so is the eye of 
Polyphemos, which Odysseus puts out.* But the Greek 
poet knew nothing of the incongruity, for he was think- 
ing only of a superhuman hero freeing himself from a 
giant cannibal ; he knew nothing of Sanskrit, or of 
comparative mythology, and the sources of his myths 
were as completely hidden from his view as the sources 
of the Nile. 

We need not be surprised, then, to find that in one 
version of the schamir-myth the cloud is the bird which 
carries the worm, while in another version the cloud is 
the rock or mountain which the talisman cleaves open ; 
nor need we wonder at it, if we find stories in which the 
two conceptions are mingled together without regard to 
an incongruity which in the mind of the myth-teller no 
longer exists.*)* 

In early Aryan mythology there is nothing by which 

* "If Polyphemos's eye be the sun, then Odysseus, the solar hero, 
extinguishes himself, a very primitive instance of suicide." Mahaffy, 
Prolegomena, p. 57. See also Brown, Poseidon, pp. 39, 40. This 
objection would be relevant only in case Homer were supposed to be 
constructing an allegory with entire knowledge of its meaning. It has 
no validity whatever when we recollect that Homer could have known 
nothing of the incongruity. 

t The Sanskrit myth-teller indeed mixes up his materials in a way 
which seems ludicrous to a Western reader. He describes Indra (the 
sun-god) as not only cleaving the cloud-mountains with his sword, but 
also cutting off their wings and hurling them from the sky. See Burnouf, 
Bhagavata Purana, VI. 12, 26. 

* 



54 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



the clouds are more frequently represented than by rocks 
or mountains. Such were the Symplegades, which, 
charmed by the harp of the wind-god Orpheus, parted to 
make way for the talking ship Argo, with its crew of 
solar heroes.* Such, too, were the mountains Ossa and 
Pelion, which the giants piled up one upon another in 
their impious assault upon Zeus, the lord of the bright 
sky. As Mr. Baring-Gould observes : " The ancient Aryan 
had the same name for cloud and mountain. To him the 
piles of vapour on the horizon were so like Alpine ranges, 
that he had but one word whereby to designate both.f 
These great mountains of heaven were opened by the 
lightning. In the sudden flash he beheld the dazzling 
splendour within, but only for a moment, and then, with 
a crash, the celestial rocks closed again. Believing these 
vaporous piles to contain resplendent treasures of which 
partial glimpse was obtained by mortals in a momentary 
gleam, tales were speedily formed, relating the adventures 
of some who had succeeded in entering these treasure- 
mountains." 

This sudden flash is the smiting of the cloud-rock by 
the arrow of Ahmed, the resistless hammer of Thor, the 
spear of Odin, the trident of Poseidon, or the rod of 
Hermes. The forked streak of light is the archetype of 
the divining-rod in its oldest form, — that in which it 

* Mr. Tylor offers a different, and possibly a better, explanation of 
the Symplegades as the gates of Night through which the solar ship, 
having passed successfully once, may henceforth pass forever. See the 
details of the evidence in his Primitive Culture, I. 315. 

+ The Sanskrit parvata, a bulging or inflated body, means both 
"cloud" and "mountain." "In the Edda, too, the rocks, said to 
have been fashioned out of Ymir's bones, are supposed to be intended 
for clouds. In Old Norse Klakkr means both cloud and rock ; nay, the 
English word cloud itself has been identified with the Anglo-Saxon 
dud, rock. See Justi, Orient und Occident, Vol. II. p. 62." Max 
Miiller, Rig- Veda, Vol. I. p. 44. 



THE DESCENT OF FIRE. 55 

not only indicates the hidden treasures, but, like the staff 
of the Ilsenstein shepherd, bursts open the enchanted 
crypt and reveals them to the astonished wayfarer. Hence 
the one thing essential to the divining-rod, from whatever 
tree it be chosen, is that it shall be forked. 

It is not difficult to comprehend the reasons which led 
the ancients to speak of the lightning as a worm, serpent, 
trident, arrow, or forked wand; but when we inquire 
why it was sometimes symbolized as a flower or leaf, or 
when we seek to ascertain why certain trees, such as the 
ash, hazel, white-thorn, and mistletoe, were supposed to 
be in a certain sense embodiments of it, we are entering 
upon a subject too complicated to be satisfactorily treated 
within the limits of the present paper. It has been said 
that the point of resemblance between a cow and a 
comet, that both have tails, was quite enough for the 
primitive word-maker : it was certainly enough for the 
primitive myth-teller.* Sometimes the pinnate shape 
of a leaf, the forking of a branch, the tri-cleft corolla, or 
even the red colour of a flower, seems to have been 
sufficient to determine the association of ideas. The 
Hindu commentators of the Veda certainly lay great 
stress on the fact that the palasa, one of their lightning- 
trees, is trident-leaved. The mistletoe branch is forked, 
like a wish-bone,-f- and so is the stem which bears the 

* In accordance with the mediaeval " doctrine of signatures," it was 
maintained " that the hard, stony seeds of the Gromwell must he good 
for gravel, and the knotty tubers of scrophularia for scrofulous glands ; 
- while the scaly pappus of scaliosa showed it to he a specific in leprous 
diseases, the spotted leaves of pulmonaria that it was a sovereign remedy 
for tuberculous lungs, and the growth of saxifrage in the fissures of 
rocks that it would disintegrate stone in the bladder." Prior, Popular 
Names of British Plants, Introd., p. xiv. See also Chapiel, La Doctrine 
des Signatures. Paris, 1866. 

+ Indeed, the wish-bone, or forked clavicle of a fowl, itself belongs 
to the same family of talismans as the divining-rod. 



56 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



forget-me-not or wild scorpion grass. So too the leaves 
of the Hindu ficus religiosa resemble long spear-heads.* 
But in many cases it is impossible for us to determine 
with confidence the reasons which may have guided 
primitive men in their choice of talismanic plants. In 
the case of some of these stories, it would no doubt be 
wasting ingenuity to attempt to assign a mythical origin 
for each point of detail. The ointment of the dervise, 
for instance, in the Arabian tale, has probably no special 
mythical significance, but was rather suggested by the 
exigencies of the story, in an age when the old mythol- 
ogies were so far disintegrated and mingled together that 
any one talisman would serve as well as another the 
purposes of the narrator. But the Hghtning-plants of 
Indo-European folk-lore cannot be thus summarily dis- 
posed of ; for however difficult it may be for us to per- 
ceive any connection between them and the celestial 
phenomena which they represent, the myths concerning 
them are so numerous and explicit as to render it certain 
that some such connection was imagined by the myth- 
makers. The superstition concerning the hand of glory 
is not so hard to interpret. In the mythology of the 
Finns, the storm-cloud is a black man with a bright 
copper hand ; and in Hindustan, Indra Savitar, the deity 
who slays the demon of the cloud, is golden-handed. 
The selection of the hand of a man who has been hanged 
is probably due to the superstition which regarded the 
storm-god Odin as peculiarly the lord of the gallows. 

* The ash, on the other hand, has been from time immemorial used 
fo» spears in many parts of the Aryan domain. The word cesc meant, 
in Anglo-Saxon, indifferently "ash-tree," or " spear " ; and the same is, 
or has been, true of the French fresne and the Greek ^eAt'a. The root 
of cesc appears in the Sanskrit as, " to throw " or " lance," whence ds^ 
"a bow," and asand, "an arrow." See Pictet, Origines Indo-Eura 
peennes, I. 222. 



THE DESCENT OF FIRE. 



57 



The man who is raised upon the gallows is placed directly 
in the track of the wild huntsman, who comes with his 
hounds to carry off the victim ; and hence the notion, 
which, according to Mr. Kelly, is "very common in 
Germany and not extinct in England," that every suicide 
by hanging is followed by a storm. 

The paths of comparative mythology are devious, but 
we have now pursued them long enough, I believe, to 
have arrived at a tolerably clear understanding of the 
original nature of the divining-rod. Its power of reveal- 
ing treasures has been sufficiently explained; and its 
affinity for water results so obviously from the character 
of the lightning-myth as to need no further comment. 
But its power of detecting criminals still remains to be 
accounted for. 

In Greek mythology, the being which detects and pun- 
ishes crime is the Erinys, the prototype of the Latin 
Fury, figured by late writers as a horrible monster with 
serpent locks. But this is a degradation of the original 
conception. The name Erinys did not originally mean 
Fury, and it cannot be explained from Greek sources 
alone. It appears in Sanskrit as Saranyu, a word which 
signifies the light of morning creeping over the sky. 
And thus we are led to the startling conclusion that, as 
the light of morning reveals the evil deeds done under 
the cover of night, so the lovely Dawn, or Erinys, came 
to be regarded under one aspect as the terrible detector 
and avenger of iniquity. Yet startling as the conclusion 
is, it is based on established laws of phonetic change, and 
cannot be gainsaid. 

But what has the avenging daybreak to do with the 
lightning and the divining-rod ? To the modern mind 
the association is not an obvious one: in antiquity it 
was otherwise. Myths of the daybreak and myths of the 

3* 



58 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



lightning often resemble each other so closely that, ex- 
cept by a delicate philological analysis, it is difficult, to 
distinguish the one from the other. The reason is obvi- 
ous. In each case the phenomenon to be explained is 
the struggle between the day-god and one of the demons 
of darkness. There is essentially no distinction to the 
mind of the primitive man between the Panis, who steal 
Indra's bright cows and keep them in a dark cavern all 
night, and the throttling snake Ahi or Echidna, who im- 
prisons the waters in the stronghold of the thunder-cloud 
and covers the earth with a short-lived darkness. And 
so the poisoned arrows of Bellerophon, which slay the 
storm-dragon, differ in no essential respect from the 
shafts with which Odysseus slaughters the night-demons 
who have for ten long hours beset his mansion. Thus 
the divining-rod, representing as it does the weapon of 
the god of day, comes legitimately enough by its func- 
tion of detecting and avenging crime. 

But the lightning not only reveals strange treasures 
and gives water to the thirsty land and makes plain what 
is doing under cover of darkness ; it also sometimes kills, 
benumbs, or paralyzes. Thus the head of the Gorgon 
Medusa turns into stone those who look upon it. Thus 
the ointment of the dervise, in the tale of Baba Abdallah, 
not only reveals all the treasures of the earth, but in- 
stantly thereafter blinds the unhappy man who tests its 
powers. And thus the hand of glory, which bursts open 
bars and bolts, benumbs also those who happen to be 
near it. Indeed, few of the favoured mortals who were 
allowed to visit the caverns opened by sesame or the 
luck-flower, escaped without disaster. The monkish tale 
of "The Clerk and the Image," in which the primeval 
mythical features are curiously distorted, well illustrates 
this point. 



THE DESCENT OF FIRE. 



59 



In the city of Eome there formerly stood an image 
with its right hand extended and on its forefinger the 
words "strike here." Many wise men pnzzled in vain 
over the meaning of the inscription • but at last a cer- 
tain priest observed that whenever the sun shone on the 
figure, the shadow of the finger was discernible on the 
ground at a little distance from the statue. Having 
marked the spot, he waited until midnight, and then 
began to dig. At last his spade struck upon something 
hard. It was a trap-door, below which a flight of marble 
steps descended into a spacious hall, where many men 
were sitting in solemn silence amid piles of gold and 
diamonds and long rows of enamelled vases. Beyond 
this he found another room, a gyncecium filled with beau- 
tiful women reclining on richly embroidered sofas ; yet 
here, too, all was profound silence. A superb banqueting- 
hall next met his astonished gaze ; then a silent kitchen ; 
then granaries loaded with forage ; then a stable crowded 
with motionless horses. The whole place was brilliantly 
lighted by a carbuncle which was suspended in one cor- 
ner of the reception-room ; and opposite stood an archer, 
with his bow and arrow raised, in the act of taking aim 
at the jewel. As the priest passed back through this 
hall, he saw a diamond-hilted knife lying on a marble 
table ; and wishing to carry away something wherewith 
to accredit his story, he reached out his hand to take it ; 
but no sooner had he touched it than all was dark. The 
archer had shot with his arrow, the bright jewel was 
shivered into a thousand pieces, the staircase had fled, 
and the priest found himself buried alive.* 

* Compare Spenser's story of Sir Guyon, m the "Faery Queen," where, 
however, the knight fares better than this poor priest. Usually these 
lightning-caverns were like Ixion's treasure-house, into which none 
might look and live. This conception is the foundation of part of the 



6o 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



Usually, however, though the lightning is wont to 
strike dead, with its basilisk glance, those who rashly 
enter its mysterious caverns, it is regarded rather as a 
benefactor than as a destroyer. The feelings with which 
the myth-making age contemplated the thunder-shower 
as it revived the earth paralyzed by a long drought, are 
shown in the myth of Oidipous. The Sphinx, whose 
name signifies " the one who binds," is the demon who 
sits on the cloud-rock and imprisons the rain, muttering 
dark sayings which none but the all-knowing sun may 
understand. The flash of solar light which causes the 
monster to fling herself down from the cliff with a fear- 
ful roar, restores the land to prosperity. But besides 
this, the association of the thunder-storm with the ap- 
proach of summer has produced many myths in which 
the lightning is symbolized as the life-renewing wand of 
the victorious sun-god. Hence the use of the divining- 
rod in the cure of disease ; and hence the large family of 
schamir-myths in which the dead are restored to life by 
leaves or herbs. In Grimm's tale of the Three Snake 
Leaves, " a prince is buried alive (like Sindbad) with his 
dead wife, and seeing a snake approaching her body, he 
cuts it in three pieces. Presently another snake, crawl- 
ing from the corner, saw the other lying dead, and going 
away soon returned with three green leaves in its mouth ; 
then laying the parts of the body together so as to join, 
it put one leaf on each wound, and the dead snake was 
alive again. The prince, applying the leaves to his wife's 
body, restores her also to life."* In the Greek story, 
told by iElian and Apollodoros, Polyidos is shut up with 
the corpse of Glaukos, which he is ordered to restore to 

story of Blue-Beard and of the Arabian tale of the third one-eyed Cal- 
ender. 

* Gox, Mythology of the Aryan Nations, Yol. I. p. 161. 



THE DESCENT OF FIRE. 



6l 



life. He kills a dragon which is approaching the body, 
but is presently astonished at seeing another dragon come 
with a blade of grass and place it upon its dead compan- 
ion, which instantly rises from the ground. Polyidos 
takes the same blade of grass, and with it resuscitates 
Glaukos. The same incident occurs in the Hindu story 
of Panch Phul Eanee, and in Fouque"s "Sir Elidoc," 
which is founded on a Breton legend. 

We need not wonder, then, at the extraordinary thera^ 
peutic properties which are in all Aryan folk-lore as- 
cribed to the various lightning-plants. In Sweden sani- 
tary amulets are made of mistletoe-twigs, and the plant 
is supposed to be a specific against epilepsy and an anti- 
dote for poisons. In Cornwall children are passed through 
holes in ash-trees in order to cure them of hernia. Ash 
rods are used in some parts of England for the cure of 
diseased sheep, cows, and horses ; and in particular they 
are supposed to neutralize the venom of serpents. The 
notion that snakes are afraid of an ash-tree is not extinct 
even in the United States. The other day I was told, 
not by an old granny, but by a man fairly educated and 
endowed with a very unusual amount of good common- 
sense, that a rattlesnake will sooner go through fire than 
creep over ash leaves or into the shadow of an ash-tree. 
Exactly the same statement is made by Pliny, who adds 
that if you draw a circle with an ash rod around the spot 
of ground on which a snake is lying, the animal must die 
of starvation, being as effectually imprisoned as Ugolino 
in the dungeon at Pisa. In Cornwall it is believed that 
a blow from an ash stick will instantly kill any serpent. 
The ash shares this virtue with the hazel and fern. A 
Swedish peasant will tell you that snakes may be de- 
prived of their venom by a touch with a hazel wand; 
and when an ancient Greek had occasion to make his 



62 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



bed in the woods, he selected fern leaves if possible, in 
the belief that the smell of them would drive away poi- 
sonous animals.* 

But the beneficent character of the lightning appears 
still more clearly in another class of myths. To the prim- 
itive man the shaft of light coming down from heaven was 
typical of the original descent of fire for the benefit and 
• improvement of the human race. The Sioux Indians ac- 
count for the origin of fire by a myth of unmistakable kin- 
ship ; they say that " their first ancestor obtained his fire 
from the sparks which a friendly panther struck from the 
rocks as he scampered up a stony hill." -|- This panther 
is obviously the counterpart of the Aryan bird which 
drops schamir. But the Aryan imagination hit upon a 
far more remarkable conception. The ancient Hindus 
obtained fire by a process similar to that employed by 
Count Eumford in his experiments on the generation of 
heat by friction. They first wound a couple of cords 
around a pointed stick in such a way that the unwinding 
of the one would wind up the other, and then, placing 
the point of the stick against a circular disk of wood, 
twirled it rapidly by alternate pulls on the two strings. 
This instrument is called a chark, and is still used in 
South Africa, J in Australia, in Sumatra, and among the 
Veddahs of Ceylon. The Eussians found it in Kamt- 
chatka ; and it was formerly employed in America, from 
Labrador to the Straits of Magellan. § The Hindus 

* Kelly, Indo-European Folk-Lore, pp. 147, 183, 186, 193. 

t Brinton, Myths of the New World, p. 151. 

J Callaway, Zulu Nursery Tales, I. 173, Note 12. 

§ Tylor, Early History of Mankind, p. 238 ; Primitive Culture, Vol. 
II. p. 254 ; Darwin, Naturalist's Voyage, p. 409. 

" Jacky's next proceeding was to get some dry sticks and wood, and 
prepare a fire, which, to George's astonishment, he lighted thus. He 
got a block of wood, in the middle of which he made a hole ; then he 



THE DESCENT OF FIRE. 



63 



churned milk by a similar process ; * and in order to 
explain the thunder-storm, a Sanskrit poem tells how 
" once upon a time the Devas, or gods, and their oppo- 
nents, the Asuras, made a truce, and joined together in 
churning the ocean to procure amrita, the drink of im- 
mortality. They took Mount Mandara for a churning- 
stick, and, wrapping the great serpent Sesha round it for 
a rope, they made the mountain spin round to and fro, * 
the Devas pulling at the serpent's tail, and the Asuras at 
its head."-|- In this myth the churning-stick, with its 
flying serpent-cords, is the lightning, and the amrita, or 
drink of immortality, is simply the rain-water, which in 
Aryan folk-lore possesses the same healing virtues as the 
lightning. " In Sclavonic myths it is the water of life 
which restores the dead earth, a water brought by a bird 
from the depths of a gloomy cave." \ It is the celestial 
soma or mead which Indra loves to drink ; it is the am- 
brosial nectar of the Olympian gods ;. it is the charmed 
water which in the Arabian Mghts restores tu human 
shape the victims of wicked sorcerers ; and it is the elixir 
of life which mediaeval philosophers tried to discover, and 
in quest of which Ponce de Leon traversed the wilds of 
Florida.§ 

cut and pointed a long stick, and inserting the point into the "block, 
worked it round between his palms for some time and with increasing 
rapidity. Presently there came a smell of burning wood, and soon after 
it burst into a flame at the point of contact. Jacky cut slices of shark 
and roasted them." — Eeade, Never too Late to Mend, chap, xxxviii. 

* The production of fire by the drill is often called churning, e. g. 
"He took the uvati [chark], and sat down and churned it, and kindled 
afire." Callaway, Zulu Nursery Tales, I. 174. 

t Kelly, Indo-European Folk-Lore, p. 39. Burnouf, Bhagavata Pu« 
rana, VIII. 6, 32. 

% Baring-Gould, Curious Myths, p. 149. 

§ It is also the regenerating water of baptism, and the " holy water * 
of the Roman Catholic. 



6 4 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



The most interesting point in this Hindu myth is the 
name of the peaked mountain Mandara, or Manthara, 
which the gods and devils took for their churning-stick. 
The word means " a churning-stick," and it appears also, 
with a prefixed preposition, in the name of the fire-drill, 
pramantha. Now Kuhn has proved that this name, pra- 
mantha, is etymologically identical with Prometheus, the 
name of the beneficent Titan, who stole fire from heaven 
and bestowed it upon mankind as the richest of boons. 
This sublime personage was originally nothing but the 
celestial drill which churns fire out of the clouds ; but 
the Greeks had so entirely forgotten his origin that they 
interpreted his name as meaning "the one who thinks 
beforehand," and accredited him with a brother, Epime- 
theus, or " the one who thinks too late." The Greeks had 
adopted another name, trypanon, for their fire-drill, and 
thus the primitive character of Prometheus became ob- 
scured. 

I have said above that it was regarded as absolutely 
essential that the divining-rod should be forked. To 
this rule, however, there was one exception, and if any 
further evidence be needed to convince the most scepti- 
cal that the divining-rod is nothing but a symbol of the 
lightning, that exception will furnish such evidence. For 
this exceptional kind of divining-rod was made of a 
pointed stick rotating in a block of wood, and it was the 
presence of hidden water or treasure which was supposed 
to excite the rotatory motion. 

In the myths relating to Prometheus, the lightning-god 
appears as the originator of civilization, sometimes as the 
creator of the human race, and always as its friend,* suf- 

* In the Vedas the rain-god Soma, originally the personification of 
the sacrificial amhrosia, is the deity who imparts to men life, knowledge, 
and happiness. See Breal, Hercnle et Cacus, p. 85. Tylor, Primitive 
Culture, Vol. II. p. 277- 



THE DESCENT OF FIRE. 



65 



fering in its behalf the most fearful tortures at the hands 
of the jealous Zeus. In one story he creates man by 
making a clay image and infusing into it a spark of the 
fire which he had brought from heaven ; in another story 
he is himself the first man. In the Peloponnesian myth 
Phoroneus, who is Prometheus under another name, is the 
first man, and his mother was an ash-tree. In Norse 
mythology, also, the gods were said to have made the 
first man out of the ash-tree Yggdrasil. The association 
of the heavenly fire with the life-giving forces of nature 
is very common in the myths of both hemispheres, and 
in view of the facts already cited it need not surprise us. 
Hence the Hindu Agni and the Norse Thor were patrons 
of marriage, and in Norway, the most lucky day on which 
to be married is still supposed to be Thursday, which in 
old times was the day of the fire-god.* Hence the light- 
ning-plants have divers virtues in matters pertaining to 
marriage. The Eomans made their wedding torches of 
whitethorn ; hazel-nuts are still used all over Europe in 
divinations relating to the future lover or sweetheart ; f 
and under a mistletoe bough it is allowable for a gentle- 
man to kiss a lady. A vast number of kindred supersti- 
tions are described by Mr. Kelly, to whom I am indebted 
for many of these examples. { 

* ¥e may, perhaps, see here the reason for making the Greek fire-god 
Hephaistos the husband of Aphrodite. 

+ "Our country maidens are well aware that triple leaves plucked at 
hazard from the common ash are worn in the breast, for the purpose of 
causing prophetic dreams respecting a dilatory lover. The leaves of the 
yellow trefoil are supposed to possess similar virtues." — Harland and 
"Wilkinson, Lancashire Folk-Lore, p. 20. 

X " In Peru, a mighty and far- worshipped deity was Catequil, the 
thunder-god, .... he who in thunder-flash and clap hurls from his 
sling the small, round, smooth thunder-stones, treasured in the villages 
as fire-fetishes and charms to kindle the flames of love." — Tylor, op. cit. 
Vol. II. p. 239. 



66 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



Thus we reach at last the completed conception of the 
divining-rod, or as it is called in this sense the wish-rod, 
with its kindred talismans, from Aladdin's lamp and the 
purse of Bedreddin Hassan, to the Sangreal, the philoso- 
pher's stone, and the goblets of Oberon and Tristram. 
These symbols of the reproductive energies of nature, 
which give to the possessor every good and perfect gift, 
illustrate the uncurbed belief in the power of wish which 
the ancient man shared with modern children. In the 
Norse story of Frodi' s quern, the myth assumes a whim- 
sical shape. The prose Edda tells of a primeval age of 
gold, when everybody had whatever he wanted. This 
was because the giant Frodi had a mill which ground out 
peace and plenty and abundance of gold withal, so that 
it lay about the roads like pebbles. Through the inex- 
cusable avarice of Frodi, this wonderful implement was 
lost to the world. For he kept his maid-servants work- 
ing at the mill until they got out of patience, and began 
to make it grind out hatred and war. Then came a 
mighty sea-rover by night and slew Frodi and carried 
away the maids and the quern. When he got well out 
to sea, he told them to grind out salt, and so they did 
with a vengeance. They ground the ship full of salt and 
sank it, and so the quern was lost forever, but the sea 
remains salt unto this day. 

Mr. Kelly rightly identifies Frodi with the sun-god Fro 
or Freyr, and observes that the magic mill is only an- 
other form of the fire-churn, or chark. According to 
another version the quern is still grinding away and 
keeping the sea salt, and over the place where it lies 
there is a prodigious whirlpool or maelstrom which sucks 
down ships. 

In its completed shape, the lightning- wand is the ca- 
duceus, or rod of Hermes. I observed, in the preceding 



THE DESCENT OF FIRE. 



6 7 



paper, that in the Greek conception of Hermes there 
have been fused together the attributes of two deities 
who were originally distinct. The Hermes of the Ho- 
meric Hymn is a wind-god ; but the later Hermes Ago- 
raios, the patron of gymnasia, the mutilation of whose 
statues caused such terrible excitement in Athens during 
the Peloponnesian War, is a very different personage. 
He is a fire-god, invested with many solar attributes, and 
represents the quickening forces of nature. In this ca- 
pacity the invention of fire was ascribed to him as well 
as to Prometheus ; he was said to be the friend of man- 
kind, and was surnamed Ploutodotes, or " the giver of 
wealth." 

The Norse wind-god Odin has in like manner acquired 
several of the attributes of Freyr and Thor.* His light- 
ning-spear, which is borrowed from Thor, appears by a 
comical metamorphosis as a wish-rod which will admin- 
ister a sound thrashing to the enemies of its possessor. 
Having cut a hazel stick, you have only to lay down an 
old coat, name your intended victim, wish he was there, 
and whack away : he will howl with pain at every blow. 
This wonderful cudgel appears in Dasent's tale of " The 
Lad who went to the North Wind," with which we may 
conclude this discussion. The story is told, with little 
variation, in Hindustan, Germany, and Scandinavia. 

The North Wind, representing the mischievous Hermes, 
once blew away a poor woman's meal. So her boy went 
to the North Wind and demanded his rights for the meal 
his mother had lost. "I have n't got your meal," said 
the Wind, "but here's a tablecloth which will cover 
itself with an excellent dinner whenever you tell it to." 

* In Polynesia, "the great deity Maui adds a new complication to his 
enigmatic solar-celestial character by appearing as a wind-god." — Tylor, 
op. cit. Vol. II. p. 242. 



68 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



So the lad took the cloth and started for home. At night- 
fall he stopped at an inn, spread his cloth on the table, 
and ordered it to cover itself with good things, and so it 
did. But the landlord, who thought it would be money 
in his pocket to have such a cloth, stole it after the boy 
had gone to bed, and substituted another just like it in 
appearance. Next day the boy went home in great glee 
to show off for his mother's astonishment what the North 
Wind had given him, but all the dinner he got that day 
was what the old woman cooked for him. In his despair 
he went back to the North Wind and called him a liar, 
and again demanded his rights for the meal he had lost. 
" I have n't got your meal," said the Wind, " but here 's a 
ram which will drop money out of its fleece whenever 
you tell it to." So the lad travelled home, stopping over 
night at the same inn, and when he got home he found 
himself with a ram which did n't drop coins out of its 
fleece. A third time he visited the North Wind, and 
obtained a bag with a stick in it which, at the word of 
command, would jump out of the bag and lay on until 
told to stop. Guessing how matters stood as to his cloth 
and ram, he turned in at the same tavern, and going to 
a bench lay down as if to sleep. The landlord thought 
that a stick carried about in a bag must be worth some- 
thing, and so he stole quietly up to the bag, meaning to 
get the stick out and change it. But just as he got 
within whacking distance, the boy gave the word, and 
out jumped the stick and beat the thief until he prom- 
ised to give back the ram and the tablecloth. And so 
the boy got his rights for the meal which the North 
Wind had blown away. 

October, 1870. 



WEREWOLVES AND SWAN-MAIDENS. 69 



III. 

WEEEWOLVES AND SWAN-MAIDENS. , 

IT is related by Ovid that Lykaon, king of Arkadia, 
once invited Zeus to dinner, and served up for him 
a dish of human flesh, in order to test the god's omni- 
science. But the trick miserably failed, and the impious 
monarch received the punishment which his crime had 
merited. He was transformed into a wolf, that he might 
henceforth feed upon the viands with which he had dared 
to pollute the table of the king of Olympos. From that 
time forth, according to Pliny, a noble Arkadian was each 
year, on the festival of Zeus Lykaios, led to the margin 
of a certain lake. Hanging his clothes upon a tree, he 
then plunged into the water and became a wolf. Eor the 
space of nine years he roamed about the adjacent woods, 
and then, if he had not tasted human flesh during all this 
time, he was allowed to swim back to the place where 
his clothes were hanging, put them on, and return to his 
natural form. It is further related of a certain Demai- 
netos, that, having once been present at a human sacrifice 
to Zeus Lykaios, he ate of the flesh, and was transformed 
into a wolf for a term of ten years.* 

These and other similar mythical germs were devel- 
oped by the mediaeval imagination into the horrible 
superstition of werewolves. 

A werewolf, or loup-garou,f was a person who had the 

* Compare Plato, Republic, VIII. 15. 

f Wer e- wolf = man-wolf, wer meaning " man." Garou is a Gallic 
corruption of werewolf, so that loup-garou is a tautological expression. 



7o 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



power of transforming himself into a wolf, being en- 
dowed, while in the lupine state, with the intelligence 
of a man, the ferocity of a wolf, and the irresistible 
strength of a demon. The ancients believed in the exist- 
ence of such persons ; but in the Middle Ages the meta- 
morphosis was supposed to be a phenomenon of daily 
occurrence, and even at the present day, in secluded por- 
tions of Europe, the superstition is still cherished by 
peasants. The belief, moreover, is supported by a vast 
amount of evidence, which can neither be argued nor 
pooh-poohed into insignificance. It is the business of 
the comparative mythologist to trace the pedigree of the 
ideas from which such a conception may have sprung ; 
while to the critical historian belongs the task of ascer- 
taining and classifying the actual facts which this par- 
ticular conception was used to interpret. 

The mediaeval belief in werewolves is especially adapted 
to illustrate the complicated manner in which divers 
mythical conceptions and misunderstood natural occur- 
rences will combine to generate a long-enduring super- 
stition. Mr. Cox, indeed, would have us believe that the 
whole notion arose from an unintentional play upon 
words; but the careful survey of the field, which has 
been taken by Hertz and Baring-Gould, leads to the con- 
clusion that many other circumstances have been at work. 
The delusion, though doubtless purely mythical in its 
origin, nevertheless presents in its developed state a curi- 
ous mixture of mythical and historical elements. 

With regard to the Arkadian legend, taken by itself, 
Mr. Cox is probably right. The story seems to belong 
to that large class of myths which have been devised in 
order to explain the meaning of equivocal words whose 
true significance has been forgotten. The epithet Lykaios, 
as applied to Zeus, had originally no reference to wolves : 



WEREWOLVES AND SWAN-MAIDENS. fl 



it means " the bright one/' and gave rise to lycanthropic 
legends only because of the similarity in sound between 
the names for " wolf " and " brightness." Aryan mythol- 
ogy furnishes numerous other instances of this confu- 
sion. The solar deity, Phoibos Lykegenes, was originally 
the " offspring of light " ; but popular etymology made a 
kind of werewolf of him by interpreting his name as the 
"wolf-born." The name of the hero Autolykos means 
simply the " self-luminous " ; but it was more frequently 
interpreted as meaning " a very wolf/' in allusion to the 
supposed character of its possessor. Bazra, the name of 
the citadel of Carthage, was the Punic word for "for- 
tress " ; but the Greeks confounded it with byrsa, " a hide," 
and hence the story of the ox-hides cut into strips by 
Dido in order to measure the area of the place to be forti- 
fied. The old theory that the Irish were Phoenicians had 
a similar origin. The name Fena, used to designate the 
old Scoti or Irish, is the plural of Fion, " fair," seen in 
the name of the hero Fion Gall, or " Fingal " ; but the 
monkish chroniclers identified Fena with Phoinix, whence 
arose the myth ; and by a like misunderstanding of the 
epithet Miledh, or "warrior," applied to Fion by the 
Gaelic bards, there was generated a mythical hero, Mile- 
sius, and the soubriquet " Milesian," colloquially employed 
in speaking of the Irish.* So the Franks explained the 
name of the town Daras, in Mesopotamia, by the story 
that the Emperor Justinian once addressed the chief mag- 
istrate with the exclamation, daras, " thou shalt give " : f 
the Greek chronicler, Malalas, who spells the name Doras, 
informs us with equal complacency that it was the place 
where Alexander overcame Codomannus with &6pv, " the 
spear." A certain passage in the Alps is called Scaletta, 

* Meyer, in Bunsen's Philosophy of Universal History, Vol* I# p» 151* 
t Aimoin, De Gestis Francorum, II. 5. 



72 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



from its resemblance to a staircase ; but according to a 
local tradition it owes its name to the bleaching skeletons 
of a company of Moors who were destroyed there in the 
eighth century, while attempting to penetrate into North- 
ern Italy. The name of Antwerp denotes the town built 
at a "wharf" ; but it sounds very much like the Flemish 
handt werjpen, " hand-throwing " : " hence arose the legend 
of the giant who cut off the hands of those who passed 
his castle without paying him black-mail, and threw them 
into the Scheldt." * In the myth of Bishop Hatto, related 
in a previous paper, the Mause-thurm is a corruption of 
maut-thurm ; it means " customs-tower," and has nothing 
to do with mice or rats. Doubtless this etymology was 
the cause of the floating myth getting fastened to this 
particular place ; that it did not give rise to the myth 
itself is shown by the existence of the same tale in other 
places. Somewhere in England there is a place called 
Chateau Vert ; the peasantry have corrupted it into Shot- 
over, and say that it has borne that name ever since 
Little John shot over a high hill in the neighbourhood.-|* 
Latium means " the flat land " ; but, according to Virgil, 
it is the place where Saturn once hid (latuisset) from the 
wrath of his usurping son Jupiter. J 

* Taylor, Words and Places, p. 393. 

t Very similar to this is the etymological confusion upon which is 
based the myth of the " confusion of tongues " in the eleventh chapter 
of Genesis. The name "Babel" is really Bab-Il, or "the gate of God" ; 
but the Hebrew writer erroneously derives the word from the root SS| 
balal, "to confuse"; and hence arises the mythical explanation, — 
that Babel was a place where human speech became confused. See Eaw- 
linson, in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. I. p. 149 ; Renan, His- 
toire des Langues Semitiques, Vol. I. p. 32 ; Donaldson, New Cratylus, 
p. 74, note ; Colenso on the Pentateuch, Vol. IV. p. 268. 

% Virg. Mu. VIII. 322. "With Latium compare irkaris, Skr. prath 
(to spread out), Eng. flat. Ferrar, Comparative Grammar of Greek, 
Latin, and Sanskrit, Vol. I. p. 31. 



WEREWOLVES AND SWAN-MAIDENS. 73 



It was in this way that the constellation of the Great 
Bear received its name. The Greek word arhtos, answer- 
ing to the Sanskrit riksha, meant originally any bright 
object, and was applied to the bear — for what reason it 
would not be easy to state — and to that constellation 
which was most conspicuous in the latitude of the early 
home of the Aryans. When the Greeks had long forgot- 
ten why these stars were called arktoi, they symbolized 
them as a Great Bear fixed in the sky. So that, as Max 
Muller observes, " the name of the Arctic regions rests 
on a misunderstanding of a name framed thousands of 
years ago in Central Asia, and the surprise with which 
many a thoughtful observer has looked at these seven 
bright stars, wondering why they were ever called the 
Bear, is removed by a reference to the early annals of 
human speech." Among the Algonquins the sun-god 
Michabo was represented as a hare, his name being com- 
pounded of michi, " great," and wabos, " a hare " ; yet 
wabos also meant " white," so that the god was doubtless 
originally called simply "the Great White One." The 
same naive process has made bears of the Arkadians, 
whose name, like that of the Lykians, merely signified 
that they were " children of light " ; and the metamor- 
phosis of Kallisto, mother of Arkas, into a bear, and of 
Lykaon into a wolf, rests apparently upon no other foun- 
dation than an erroneous etymology. Originally Lykaon 
was neither man nor wolf ; he was but another form of 
Phoibos Lykegenes, the light-born sun, and, as Mr. Cox 
has shown, his legend is but a variation of that of Tanta- 
los, who in time of drought offers to Zeus the flesh of his 
own offspring, the withered fruits, and is punished for 
his impiety. 

It seems to me, however, that this explanation, though 
valid as far as it goes, is inadequate to explain all the 

4 



74 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



features of the werewolf superstition, or to account for its 
presence in all Aryan countries and among many peoples 
who are not of Aryan origin. There can be no doubt 
that the myth-makers transformed Lykaon into a wolf 
because of his unlucky name ; because what really meant 
" bright man " seemed to them to mean " wolf-man " ; but 
it has by no means been proved that a similar equivoca- 
tion occurred in the case of all the primitive Aryan were- 
wolves, nor has it been shown to be probable that among 
each people the being with the uncanny name got thus 
accidentally confounded with the particular beast most 
dreaded by that people. Etymology alone does not ex- 
plain the fact that while Gaul has been the favourite 
haunt of the raan-wolf, Scandinavia has been preferred 
by the man-bear, and Hindustan by the man-tiger. To 
account for such a widespread phenomenon we must seek 
a more general cause. 

Nothing is more strikingly characteristic of primitive 
thinking than the close community of nature which it 
assumes between man and brute. The doctrine of me- 
tempsychosis, which is found in some shape or other all 
over the world, implies a fundamental identity between 
the two ; the Hindu is taught to respect the flocks brows- 
ing in the meadow, and will on no account lift his hand 
against a cow, for who knows but it may be his own 
grandmother ? The recent researches of Mr. M'Lerman 
and Mr. Herbert Spencer have served to connect this 
feeling with the primeval worship of ancestors and with 
the savage customs of totemism.* 

The worship of ancestors seems to have been every- 

* M'Lennan, "The Worship of Animals and Plants," Fortnightly 
Eeview, N. S. Vol. VI. pp. 407-427, 562-582, Vol. VII. pp. 194-216; 
Spencer, "The Origin of Animal Worship," Id. Vol. VII. pp. 535-550, 
reprinted in his Recent Discussions in Science, etc., pp. 31-56. 



WEREWOLVES AND SWAN-MAIDENS. 



75 



where the oldest systematized form of fetichistic religion. 
The reverence paid to the chieftain of the tribe while 
living was continued and exaggerated after his death. 
The uncivilized man is everywhere incapable of grasping 
the idea of death as it is apprehended by civilized peo- 
ple. He cannot understand that a man should pass away 
so as to be no longer capable of communicating with his 
fellows. The image of his dead chief or comrade remains 
in his mind, and the savage's philosophic realism far sur- 
passes that of the most extravagant mediaeval schoolmen ; 
to him the persistence of the idea implies the persistence 
of the reality. The dead man, accordingly, is not really 
dead ; he has thrown off his body like a husk, yet still 
retains his old appearance, and often shows himself to 
his old friends, especially after nightfall. He is no doubt 
possessed of more extensive powers than before his trans- 
formation,* and may very likely have a share in regulat- 
ing the weather, granting or withholding rain. There- 
fore, argues the uncivilized mind, he is to be cajoled and 
propitiated more sedulously now than before his strange 
transformation. 

This kind of worship still maintains a languid exist- 
ence as the state religion of China, and it still exists as a 

* Thus is explained the singular conduct of the Hindu, who slays 
himself before his enemy's door, in order to acquire greater power of 
injuring him. "A certain Brahman, on whose lands a Kshatriya raja 
had built a house, ripped himself up in revenge, and became a demon of 
the kind called Brahmadasyu, who has been ever since the terror of the 
whole country, and is the most common village-deity in Kharakpur. 
Toward the close of the last century there were two Brahmans, out of 
whose house a man had wrongfully, as they thought, taken forty rupees ; 
whereupon one of the Brahmans proceeded to cut off his own mother's 
head, with the professed view, entertained by both mother and son, that 
her spirit, excited by the beating of a large drum during forty days, 
might haunt, torment, and pursue to death the taker of their money and 
those concerned with him." Tylor, Primitive Culture, Vol. II. p. 103. 



7 6 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



portion of Brahmanism ; but in the Vedic religion it is 
to be seen in all its vigour and in all its naive simplicity. 
According to the ancient Aryan, the Pitris, or " Fathers " 
(Lat. patres), live in the sky along with Yama, the great 
original Pitri of mankind. This first man came down 
from heaven in the lightning, and back to heaven both 
himself and all his offspring must have gone. There 
they distribute light unto men below, and they shine 
themselves as stars ; and hence the Christianized Ger- 
man peasant, fifty centuries later, tells his children that 
the stars are angels' eyes, and the English cottager im- 
presses it on the youthful mind that it is wicked to 
point at the stars, though why he cannot telL But 
the Pitris are not stars only, nor do they content them- 
selves with idly looking down on the affairs of men, after 
the fashion of the laissez-faire divinities of Lucretius. 
They are, on the contrary, very busy with the weather ; 
they send rain, thunder, and lightning ; and they espe- 
cially delight in rushing over the housetops in a great 
gale of wind, led on by their chief, the mysterious hunts- 
man, Hermes or Odin. 

It has been elsewhere shown that the howling dog, or 
wish-hound of Hermes, whose appearance under the win- 
dows of a sick person is such an alarming portent, is 
merely the tempest personified. Throughout all Aryan 
mythology the souls of the dead are supposed to ride on 
the night-wind, with their howling dogs, gathering into 
their throng the souls of those just dying as they pass by 
their houses.* Sometimes the whole complex conception 
is wrapped up in the notion of a single dog, the messen- 
ger of the god of shades, who comes to summon the de- 

* Hence, in many parts of Europe, it is still customary to open the 
windows when a person dies, in order that the soul may not be hindered 
in joining the mystic cavalcade. 



WEREWOLVES AND SWAN-MAIDENS. 77 



parting soul. Sometimes, instead of a dog, we have a 
great ravening wolf who comes to devour its victim and 
extinguish the sunlight of life, as that old wolf of the 
tribe of Fenrir devoured little Eed Kiding-Hood with her 
robe of scarlet twilight.* Thus we arrive at a true were- 
wolf myth. The storm-wind, or howling Eakshasa 
of Hindu folk-lore, is " a great misshapen giant with red 
beard and red hair, with pointed protruding teeth, ready to 
lacerate and devour human flesh ; his body is covered with 
coarse, bristling hair, his huge mouth is open, he looks 
from side to side as he walks, lusting after the flesh and 
blood of men, to satisfy his raging hunger and quench 
his consuming thirst. Towards nightfall his strength in- 
creases manifold ; he can change his shape at will ; he 
haunts the woods, and roams howling through the 
jungle." f 

Now if the storm- wind is a host of Pitris, or one great 
Pitri who appears as a fearful giant, and is also a pack of 
wolves or wish-hounds, or a single savage dog or wolf, 
the inference is obvious to the mythopceic mind that men 

* The story of little Eed Kiding-Hood is "mutilated in the English 
version, but known more perfectly by old wives in Germany, who can 
tell that the lovely little maid in her shining red satin cloak was swal- 
lowed with her grandmother by the wolf, till they both came out safe 
and sound when the hunter cut open the sleeping beast. " Tylor, Primi- 
tive Culture, I. 307, where also see the kindred Russian story of Vasi- 
lissa the Beautiful. Compare the case of Tom Thumb, who "was swal- 
lowed by the cow and came out unhurt " ; the story of Saktideva swal- 
lowed by the fish and cut out again, in Somadeva Bhatta, II. 118-184; 
and the story of Jonah swallowed by the whale, in the Old Testament. 
All these are different versions of the same myth, and refer to the alter- 
nate swallowing up and casting forth of Day by Night, which is com- 
monly personified as a wolf, and now and then as a great fish. Com- 
pare Grimm's story of the Wolf and Seven Kids, Tylor, loc. cit., and 
see Early History of Mankind, p. 337 ; Hardy, Manual of Budhism, 
p. 501. 

t Baring-Gould, Book of Werewolves, p. 178 ; Muir, Sanskrit Texts, 
II. 435. 



78 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



may become wolves, at least after death. And to the 
uncivilized thinker this inference is strengthened, as Mr. 
Spencer has shown, by evidence registered on his own 
tribal totem or heraldic emblem. The bears and lions 
and leopards of heraldry are the degenerate descendants 
of the totem of savagery which designated the tribe by a 
beast-symbol. To the untutored mind there is every- 
thing in a name ; and the descendant of Brown Bear or 
Yellow Tiger or Silver Hyaena cannot be pronounced un- 
faithful to his own style of philosophizing, if he regards 
his ancestors, who career about his hut in the darkness 
of night, as belonging to whatever order of beasts his 
totem associations may suggest. 

Thus we not only see a ray of light thrown on the sub- 
ject of metempsychosis, but we get a glimpse of the 
curious process by which the intensely realistic mind of 
antiquity arrived at the notion that men could be trans- 
formed into beasts. For the belief that the soul can 
temporarily quit the body during lifetime has been uni- 
versally entertained ; and from the conception of wolf- 
like ghosts it was but a short step to the conception of 
corporeal werewolves. In the Middle Ages the phe- 
nomena of trance and catalepsy were cited in proof of the 
theory that the soul can leave the body and afterwards 
return to it. Hence it was very difficult for a person 
accused of witchcraft to prove an alibi; for to any 
amount of evidence showing that the body was inno- 
cently reposing at home and in bed, the rejoinder was 
obvious that the soul may nevertheless have been in at- 
tendance at the witches' Sabbath or busied in maiming a 
neighbour's cattle. According to one mediaeval notion, 
the soul of the werewolf quit its human body, which re- 
mained in a trance until its return.* 

* In those days even an after-dinner nap seems to have been thought 
uncanny. See Dasent, Burnt Njal, I. xxi. 



WEREWOLVES AND SWAN-MAIDENS. 79 



The mythological basis of the werewolf superstition is 
now, I believe, sufficiently indicated. The belief, how- 
ever, did not reach its complete development, or acquire 
its most horrible features, until the pagan habits of 
thought which had originated it were modified by con- 
tact with Christian theology. To the ancient there was 
nothing necessarily diabolical in the transformation of a 
man into a beast. But Christianity, which retained such 
a host of pagan conceptions under such strange disguises, 
which degraded the " All-father " Odin into the ogre of 
the castle to which Jack climbed on his bean-stalk, and 
which blended the beneficent lightning-god Thor and the 
mischievous Hermes and the faun-like Pan into the gro- 
tesque Teutonic Devil, did not fail to impart a new and 
fearful character to the belief in werewolves. Lycan- 
thropy became regarded as a species of witchcraft ; the 
werewolf was supposed to have obtained his peculiar 
powers through the favour or connivance of the Devil ; 
and hundreds of persons were burned alive or broken on 
the wheel for having availed themselves of the privilege 
of beast-metamorphosis. The superstition, thus widely 
extended and greatly intensified, was confirmed by many 
singular phenomena which cannot be omitted from any 
thorough discussion of the nature and causes of lycan- 
thropy. 

The first of these phenomena is the Berserker insanity, 
characteristic of Scandinavia, but not unknown in other 
countries. In times when killing one's enemies often 
formed a part of the necessary business of life, persons 
were frequently found who killed for the mere love of 
the thing ; with whom slaughter was an end desirable in 
itself, not merely a means to a desirable end. What the 
miser is in an age which worships mammon, such was 
the Berserker in an age when the current idea of heaven 



8o 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



was that of a place where people could hack each other to 
pieces through all eternity, and when the man who refused 
a challenge was punished with confiscation of his estates. 
With these Northmen, in the ninth century, the chief 
business and amusement in life was to set sail for some 
pleasant country, like Spain or France, and make all the 
coasts and navigable rivers hideous with rapine and mas- 
sacre. When at home, in the intervals between their 
freebooting expeditions, they were liable to become pos- 
sessed by a strange homicidal madness, during which they 
would array themselves in the skins of wolves or bears, 
and sally forth by night to crack the backbones, smash 
the skulls, and sometimes to drink with fiendish glee the 
blood of unwary travellers or loiterers. These fits of 
madness were usually followed by periods of utter ex- 
haustion and nervous depression.* 

Such, according to the unanimous testimony of histo- 
rians, was the celebrated " Berserker rage," not peculiar 
to the Northland, although there most conspicuously 
manifested. Taking now a step in advance, we find that 
in comparatively civilized countries there have been 
many cases of monstrous homicidal insanity. The two 
most celebrated cases, among those collected by Mr. Bar- 
ing-Gould, are those of the Marechal de Eetz, in 1440, 
and of Elizabeth, a Hungarian countess, in the seven- 
teenth century. The Countess Elizabeth enticed young 
girls into her palace on divers pretexts, and then coolly 
murdered them, for the purpose of bathing in their blood. 
The spectacle of human suffering became at last such 

* See Dasent, Burnt Njal, Vol. I. p. xxii. ; Grettis Saga, by Mag- 
rmsson and Morris, chap. xix. ; Viga Glum's Saga, by Sir Edmund 
Head, p. 13, note, wbere the Berserkers are said to have maddened 
themselves with drugs. Dasent compares them with the Malays, who 
work themselves into a frenzy by means of arrack, or hasheesh, and run 
amuck. 



WEREWOLVES AND SWAN-MAIDENS. 8 1 

a delight to her, that she would apply with her own 
hands the most excruciating tortures, relishing the 
shrieks of her victims as the epicure relishes each sip 
of his old Chateau Margaux. In this way she is 
said to have murdered six hundred and fifty persons 
before her evil career was brought to an end; though, 
when one recollects the famous men in buckram and the 
notorious trio of crows, one is inclined to strike off a 
cipher, and regard sixty-five as a sufficiently imposing 
and far less improbable number. But the case of the 
Mare*chal de Eetz is still more frightful. A marshal of 
France, a scholarly man, a patriot, and a man of holy life, 
he became suddenly possessed by an uncontrollable desire 
to murder children. During seven years he continued to 
inveigle little boys and girls into his castle, at the rate 
of about two each week, (?) and then put them to death in 
various ways, that he might witness their agonies and 
bathe in their blood ; experiencing after each occasion 
the most dreadful remorse, but led on by an irresistible 
craving to repeat the crime. When this unparalleled ini- 
quity was finally brought to light, the castle was found 
to contain bins full of children's bones. The horrible 
details of the trial are to be found in the histories of 
France by Michelet and Martin. 

Going a step further, we find cases in which the pro- 
pensity to murder has been accompanied by cannibalism. 
In 1598 a tailor of Chalons was sentenced by the par- 
liament of Paris to be burned alive for lycanthropy. 
" This wretched man had decoyed children into his shop, 
or attacked them in the gloaming when they strayed in 
the woods, had torn them with his teeth and killed them, 
after which he seems calmly to have dressed their flesh 
as ordinary meat, and to have eaten it with a great relish. 
The number of little innocents whom he destroyed is un- 
4* r 



82 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



known. A whole caskful of bones was discovered in his 
house." * About 1850 a beggar in the village of Polomyia, 
in Galicia, was proved to have killed and eaten fourteen 
children. A house had one day caught fire and burnt to 
the ground, roasting one of the inmates, who was unable 
to escape. The beggar passed by soon after, and, as he was 
suffering from excessive hunger, could not resist the temp- 
tation of making a meal off the charred body. From that 
moment he was tormented by a craving for human flesh. 
He met a little orphan girl, about nine years old, and giv- 
ing her a pinchbeck ring told her to seek for others like 
it under a tree in the neighbouring wood. She was slain, 
carried to the beggar's hovel, and eaten. In the course 
of three years thirteen other children mysteriously dis- 
appeared, but no one knew whom to suspect. At last an 
innkeeper missed a pair of ducks, and having no good 
opinion of this beggar's honesty, went unexpectedly to 
his cabin, burst suddenly in at the door, and to his hor- 
ror found him in the act of hiding under his cloak a 
severed head ; a bowl of fresh blood stood under the 
oven, and pieces of a thigh were cooking over the fire.*(* 

This occurred only about twenty years ago, and the 
criminal, though ruled by an insane appetite, is not 
known to have been subject to any mental delusion. 
But there have been a great many similar cases, in which 
the homicidal or cannibal craving has been accompanied 
by genuine hallucination. Forms of insanity in which 
the afflicted persons imagine themselves to be brute ani- 
mals are not perhaps very common, but they are not un- 
known. I once knew a poor demented old man who 
believed himself to be a horse, and would stand by the 
hour together before a manger, nibbling hay, or deluding 

* Baring- Gould, "Werewolves, p. 81. 
; + Baring- Gould, op. cit. chap. xiv. 



WEREWOLVES AND SWAN MAIDENS. 



83 



himself with the pretence of so doing. Many of the 
cannibals whose cases are related by Mr. Baring-Gould, 
in his chapter of horrors, actually believed themselves 
to have been transformed into wolves or other wild ani- 
mals. Jean Grenier was a boy of thirteen, partially 
idiotic, and of strongly marked canine physiognomy ; his 
jaws were large and projected forward, and his canine 
teeth were unnaturally long, so as to protrude beyond the 
lower lip. He believed himself to be a werewolf. One 
evening, meeting half a dozen young girls, he scared 
them out of their wits by telling them that as soon as 
the sun had set he would turn into a wolf and eat them 
forsupper. A few days later, one little girl, having gone 
out at nightfall to look after the sheep, was attacked by 
some creature which in her terror she mistook for a wolf, 
but which afterwards proved to be none other than Jean 
Grenier. She beat him off with her sheep-staff, and fled 
home. As several children had mysteriously disappeared 
from the neighbourhood, Grenier was at once suspected. 
Being brought before the parliament of Bordeaux, he 
stated that two years ago he had met the Devil one night 
in the woods and had signed a compact with him and 
received from him a wolf-skin. Since then he had 
roamed about as a wolf after dark, resuming his human 
shape by daylight. He had killed and eaten several 
children whom he had found alone in the fields, and on 
one occasion he had entered a house while the family 
were out and taken the baby from its cradle. A careful 
investigation proved the truth of these statements, so far 
as the cannibalism was concerned. There is no doubt 
that the missing children were eaten by Jean Grenier, 
and there is no doubt that in his own mind the half- 
witted boy was firmly convinced that he was a wolf. 
Here the lycanthropy was complete. 



8 4 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



In the year 1598, "in a wild and unfrequented spot 
near Caude, some countrymen came one day upon the 
corpse of a boy of fifteen, horribly mutilated and bespat- 
tered with blood. As the men approached, two wolves, 
which had been rending the body, bounded away into 
the thicket. The men gave chase immediately, following 
their bloody tracks till they lost them ; when, suddenly 
crouching among the bushes, his teeth chattering with 
fear, they found a man half naked, with long hair and 
beard, and with his hands dyed in blood. His nails were 
long as claws, and were clotted with fresh gore and shreds 
of human flesh." * 

This man, Jacques Eoulet, was a poor, half-witted 
creature under the dominion of a cannibal appetite. He 
was employed in tearing to pieces the corpse of the boy 
when these countrymen came up. Whether there were 
any wolves in the case, except what the excited imagina- 
tions of the men may have conjured up, I will not pre- 
sume to determine ; but it is certain that Eoulet sup- 
posed himself to be a wolf, and killed and ate several 
persons under the influence of the delusion. He was 
sentenced to death, but the parliament of Paris reversed 
the sentence, and charitably shut him up in a madhouse. 

The annals of the Middle Ages furnish many cases 
similar to these of Grenier and Eoulet. Their share in 
maintaining the werewolf superstition is undeniable ; 
but modern science finds in them nothing that cannot be 
readily explained. That stupendous process of breeding, 
which we call civilization, has been for long ages strength- 
ening those kindly social feelings by the possession of 
which we are chiefly distinguished from the brutes, leav- 
ing our primitive bestial impulses to die for want of 
exercise, or checking in every possible way their furthei 



* Baring-Gould, op. cit. p. 82. 



WEREWOLVES AND SWAN-MAIDENS. 



85 



expansion by legislative enactments. But this process, 
which is transforming us from savages into civilized 
men, is a very slow one ; and now and then there occur 
cases of what physiologists call atavism, or reversion to 
an ancestral type of character. Now and then persons 
are born, in civilized countries, whose intellectual powers 
are on a level with those of the most degraded Austra- 
lian savage, and these we call idiots. And now and 
then persons are born possessed of the bestial appetites 
and cravings of primitive man, his fiendish cruelty and 
his liking for human flesh. Modern physiology knows 
how to classify and explain these abnormal cases, but 
to the unscientific mediaeval mind they were explicable 
only on the hypothesis of a diabolical metamorphosis. 
And there is nothing strange in the fact that, in an age 
when the prevailing habits of thought rendered the 
transformation of men into beasts an easily admissible 
notion, these monsters of cruelty and depraved appetite 
should have been regarded as capable of taking on bestial 
forms. Nor is it strange that the hallucination under 
which these unfortunate wretches laboured should have 
taken such a shape as to account to their feeble intelli- 
gence for the existence of the appetites which they were 
conscious of not sharing with their neighbours and con- 
temporaries. If a myth is a piece of unscientific philoso- 
phizing, it must sometimes be applied to the explanation 
of obscure psychological as well as of physical phenom- 
ena. Where the modern calmly taps his forehead and 
says, " Arrested development," the terrified ancient made 
the sign of the cross and cried, " Werewolf." 

We shall be assisted in this explanation by turning 
aside for a moment to examine the wild superstitions 
about " changelings," which contributed, along with so 
many others, to make the lives of our ancestors anxious 



86 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



and miserable. These superstitions were for the most 
part attempts to explain the phenomena of insanity, 
epilepsy, and other obscure nervous diseases. A man 
who has hitherto enjoyed perfect health, and whose ac- 
tions have been consistent and rational, suddenly loses 
all self-control and seems actuated by a will foreign to 
himself. Modern science possesses the key to this phe- 
nomenon ; but in former times it was explicable only on 
the hypothesis that a demon had entered the body of the 
lunatic, or else that the fairies had stolen the real man 
and substituted for him a diabolical phantom exactly like 
him in stature and features. Hence the numerous le- 
gends of changelings, some of which are very curious. 
In Irish folk-lore we find the story of one Eickard, sur- 
named the Eake, from his worthless character. A good- 
natured, idle fellow, he spent all his evenings in dancing, 
— an accomplishment in which no one in the village 
could rival him. One night, in the midst of a lively reel, 
he fell down in a fit. " He 's struck with a fairy-dart," 
exclaimed all the friends, and they carried him home and 
nursed him ; but his face grew so thin and his manner 
so morose that by and by all began to suspect that the 
true Eickard was gone and a changeling put in his place. 
Eickard, with all his accomplishments, was no musician ; 
and so, in order to put the matter to a crucial test, a bag- 
pipe was left in the room by the side of his bed. The 
trick succeeded. One hot summer's day, when all were 
supposed to be in the field making hay, some members 
of the family secreted in a clothes-press saw the bedroom 
door open a little way, and a lean, foxy face, with a pair 
of deep-sunken eyes, peer anxiously about the premises. 
Having satisfied itself that the coast was clear, the face 
withdrew, the door was closed, and presently such ravish- 
ing strains of music were heard as never proceeded from 



WEREWOLVES AND SWAN-MAIDENS. 87 

a bagpipe before or since that day. Soon was heard the 
rustle of innumerable fairies, come to dance to the 
changeling's music. Then the " fairy-man " of the vil- 
lage, who was keeping watch with the family, heated a 
pair of tongs red-hot, and with deafening shouts all 
burst at once into the sick-chamber. The music had 
ceased and the room was empty, but in at the window 
glared a fiendish face, with such fearful looks of hatred, 
that for a moment all stood motionless with terror. But 
when the fairy-man, recovering himself, advanced with 
the hot tongs to pinch its nose, it vanished with an un- 
earthly yell, and there on the bed was Eickard, safe and 
sound, and cured of his epilepsy.* 

Comparing this legend with numerous others relating 
to changelings, and stripping off the fantastic garb of 
fairy-lore with which popular imagination has invested 
them, it seems impossible to doubt that they have arisen 
from myths devised for the purpose of explaining the 
obscure phenomena of mental disease. If this be so, 
they afford an excellent collateral illustration of the be- 
lief in werewolves. The same mental habits which led 
men to regard the insane or epileptic person as a change- 
ling, and which allowed them to explain catalepsy as the 
temporary departure of a witch's soul from its body, 
would enable them to attribute a wolf's nature to the 
maniac or idiot with cannibal appetites. And when the 
myth-forming process had got thus far, it would not stop 
short of assigning to the unfortunate wretch a tangible 
lupine body ; for all ancient mythology teemed with pre- 
cedents for such a transformation. 

It remains for us to sum up, — to tie into a bunch the 
keys which have helped us to penetrate into the secret 
causes of the werewolf superstition In a previous 

* Kennedy, Fictions of the Irish Celts, p. 90. 



88 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



paper we saw what a host of myths, fairy-tales, and 
superstitious observances have sprung from attempts to 
interpret one simple natural phenomenon, — the descent 
of fire from the clouds. Here, on the other hand, we see 
what a heterogeneous multitude of mythical elements 
may combine to build up in course of time a single enor- 
mous superstition, and we see how curiously fact and 
fancy have co-operated in keeping the superstition from 
falling. In the first place the worship of dead ancestors 
with wolf totems originated the notion of the transforma- 
tion of men into divine or superhuman wolves ; and this 
notion was confirmed by the ambiguous explanation of 
the storm-wind as the rushing of a troop of dead men's 
souls or as the howling of wolf-like monsters. Mediaeval 
Christianity retained these conceptions, merely changing 
the superhuman wolves into evil demons ; and finally the 
occurrence of cases of Berserker madness and cannibal- 
ism, accompanied by lycanthropic hallucinations, being 
interpreted as due to such demoniacal metamorphosis, 
gave rise to the werewolf superstition of the Middle 
Ages. The etymological proceedings, to which Mr. Cox 
would incontinently ascribe the origin of the entire 
superstition, seemed to me to have played a very subor- 
dinate part in the matter. To suppose that Jean Grenier 
imagined himself to be a wolf, because the Greek word 
for wolf sounded like the word for light, and thus gave 
rise to the story of a light-deity who became a wolf, 
seems to me quite inadmissible. Yet as far as such ver- 
bal equivocations may have prevailed, they doubtless 
helped to sustain the delusion. 

Thus we need no longer regard our werewolf as an 
inexplicable creature of undetermined pedigree. But any 
account of him would be quite imperfect which should 
omit all consideration of the methods by which his 



WEREWOLVES AND SWAN-MAIDENS. 89 



change of form was accomplished. By the ancient 
Eomans the werewolf was commonly called a " skin- 
changer " or " turn-coat " (versipellis), and similar epithets 
were applied to him in the Middle Ages The mediaeval 
theory was that, while the werewolf kept his human form, 
his hair grew inwards ; when he wished to become a wolf, 
he simply turned himself inside out. In many trials on 
record, the prisoners were closely interrogated as to how 
this inversion might be accomplished ; but I am not aware 
that any one of them ever gave a satisfactory answer. 
; At the moment of change their memories seem to have 
become temporarily befogged. Now and then a poor 
wretch had his arms and legs cut off, or was partially 
flayed, in order that the ingrowing hair might be de- 
tected.* Another theory was, that the possessed person 
had merely to put on a wolf's skin, in order to assume 
instantly the lupine form and character ; and in this may 
perhaps be seen a vague reminiscence of the alleged fact 
that Berserkers were in the habit of haunting the woods 
by night, clothed in the hides of wolves or bears.-|- Such 

* "En 1541, a Padoue, dit "Wier, un homme qui se croyait change en 
loup courait la campagne, attaquant et mettant a mort ceux qu'il rencon- 
trait. Apres bien des difficultes, on parvint s'emparer de lui. II dit 
en confidence a ceux qui l'arreterent : Je suis vraiment un loup, et si 
ma peau ne parait pas etre celle d'un loup, c'est parce qu'elle est retour- 
nee et que les poils sont en dedans. — Pour s' assurer du fait, on coupa 
le malheureux aux differentes parties du corps, on lui emporta les bras 
et les jambes." — Taine, De 1' Intelligence, Tom. II. p. 203. See the 
account of Slavonic werewolves in Ealston, Songs of the Russian Peo- 
ple, pp. 404-418. 

+ Mr. Cox, whose scepticism on obscure points in history rather sur- 
passes that of Sir G. C. Lewis, dismisses with a sneer the subject of the 
Berserker madness, observing that ' ' the unanimous testimony of the 
Norse historians is worth as much and as little as the convictions of 
Glanvil and Hale on the reality of witchcraft." I have not the special 
knowledge requisite for pronouncing an opinion on this point, but Mr. 
Cox's ordinary methods of disposing of such questions are not such as 



90 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



a wolfskin was kept by the boy Grenier. Koulet, on the 
other hand, confessed to using a magic salve or ointment. 
A fourth method of becoming a werewolf was to obtain 
a girdle, usually made of human skin. Several cases are 
related in Thorpe's " Northern Mythology." One hot day 
in harvest-time some reapers lay down to sleep in the 
shade ; when one of them, who could not sleep, saw the 
man next him arise quietly and gird him with a strap, 
whereupon he instantly vanished, and a wolf jumped up 
from among the sleepers and ran off across the fields. 
Another man, who possessed such a girdle, once went 
away from home without remembering to lock it up. 
His little son climbed up to the cupboard and got it, and 
as he proceeded to buckle it around his waist, he became 
instantly transformed into a strange-looking beast. Just 
then his father came in, and seizing the girdle restored 
the child to his natural shape. The boy said that no 
sooner had he buckled it on than he was tormented with 
a raging hunger. 

Sometimes the werewolf transformation led to unlucky 
accidents. At Caseburg, as a man and his wife were 
making hay, the woman threw down her pitchfork and 
went away, telling her husband that if a wild beast 
should come to him during her absence he must throw 
his hat at it. Presently a she-wolf rushed towards him. 
The man threw his hat at it, but a boy came up from 
another part of the field and stabbed the animal with 
his pitchfork, whereupon it vanished, and the woman's 
dead body lay at his feet. 

A parallel legend shows that this woman wished to 

to make one feel obliged to accept his bare assertion, unaccompanied by 
critical arguments. The madness of the bearsarks may, no doubt, be 
the same thing as the frenzy of Herakles ; but something more than 
mere dogmatism is needed to prove it. 



WEREWOLVES AND SWAN-MAIDENS. 91 



have the hat thrown at her, in order that she might be 
henceforth free from her liability to become a werewolf. 
A man was one night returning with his wife from a 
merry-making when he felt the change coming on Giv- 
ing his wife the reins, he jumped from the wagon, telling 
her to strike with her apron at any animal which might 
come to her. In a few moments a wolf ran up to the 
side of the vehicle, and, as the woman struck out with 
her apron, it bit off a piece and ran away. Presently 
the man returned with the piece of apron in his mouth, 
and consoled his terrified wife with the information that 
the enchantment had left him forever. 

A terrible case at a village in Auvergne has found its 
way into the annals of witchcraft. " A gentleman while 
hunting was suddenly attacked by a savage wolf of mon- 
strous size. Impenetrable by his shot, the beast made a 
spring upon the helpless huntsman, who in the struggle 
luckily, or unluckily for the unfortunate lady, contrived 
to cut off one of its fore-paws. This trophy he placed 
in his pocket, and made the best of his way homewards 
in safety. On the road he met a friend, to whom he 
exhibited a bleeding paw, or rather (as it now appeared) 
a woman's hand, upon which was a wedding-ring. His 
wife's ring was at once recognized by the other. His 
suspicions aroused, he immediately went in search of his 
wife, who was found sitting by the fire in the kitchen, 
her arm hidden beneath her apron, when the husband, 
seizing her by the arm, found his terrible suspicions veri- 
fied. The bleeding stump was there, evidently just fresh 
from the wound. She was given into custody, and in 
the event was burned at Eiom, in presence of thousands 
of spectators."* 

* Williams, Superstitions 01 Witchcraft, p. 179. See a parallel case of a 
cat-woman, in Thorpe's Northern Mythology, II. 26. " Certain witches 



9 2 



MYTHS AXD MYTH-MAKERS. 



Sometimes a werewolf was cured merely by recogniz- 
ing him while in his brute shape. A Swedish legend 
tells of a cottager who, on entering the forest one day 
without recollecting to say his Pater Noster, got into the 
power of a Troll, who changed him into a wolf. For 
many years his wife mourned him as dead. But one 
Christmas eve the old Troll, disguised as a beggar- 
woman, came to the house for alms ; and being taken in 
and kindly treated, told the woman that her husband 
might very likely appear to her in wolf-shape. Going at 
night to the pantry to lay aside a joint of meat for to- 
morrow's dinner, she saw a wolf standing with its paws 
on the window-sill, looking wistfully in at her. "Ah, 
dearest," said she, " if I knew that thou wert really my 
husband, I would give thee a bone." Whereupon the 
wolf-skin fell off, and her husband stood before her in 
the same old clothes which he had on the day that the 
Troll got hold of him. 

In Denmark it was believed that if a woman were to 
creep through a colt's placental membrane stretched be- 
tween four sticks, she would for the rest of her life bring 
forth children without pain or illness ; but all the boys 
would in such case be werewolves, and all the girls 
Moras, or nightmares. In this grotesque superstition 
appears that curious kinship between the werewolf and 
the wife or maiden of supernatural race, which serves 
admirably to illustrate the nature of both conceptions, 
and the elucidation of which shall occupy us throughout 
the remainder of this paper. 

at Thurso for a long time tormented an honest fellow under the usual 
form of cats, till one night he put them to flight with his broadsword, 
and cut off the leg of one less nimble than the rest ; taking it up, to his 
amazement he found it to be a woman's leg, and next morning he discov- 
ered the old hag its owner with but one leg left." — Tylor, Primitive 
Culture, I. 283. 



WEREWOLVES AND SWAN-MAIDENS. 93 



It is, perhaps, needless to state that in the personality 
of the nightmare, or Mara, there was nothing equine. 
The Mara was a female demon,* who would come at 
night and torment men or women by crouching on their 
chests or stomachs and stopping their respiration. The 
scene is well enough represented in Fuseli's picture, 
though the frenzied-looking horse which there accom- 
panies the demon has no place in the original supersti- 
tion. A Netherlandish story illustrates the character of 
the Mara. Two young men were in love with the same 
damsel. One of them, being tormented every night by 
a Mara, sought advice from his rival, and it was a treach- 
erous counsel that he got. " Hold a sharp knife with the 
point towards your breast, and you '11 never see the Mara 
again," said this false friend. The lad thanked him, but 
when he lay down to rest he thought it as well to be on 
the safe side, and so held the knife handle downward. 
So when the Mara came, instead of forcing the blade into 
his breast, she cut herself badly, and fled howling ; and 
let us hope, though the legend here leaves us in the dark, 
that this poor youth, who is said to have been the come- 
lier of the two, revenged himself on his malicious rival 
by marrying the young lady. 

But the Mara sometimes appeared in less revolting 
shape, and became the mistress or even the wife of some 
mortal man to whom she happened to take a fancy. In 
such cases she would vanish on being recognized. There 
is a well-told monkish tale of a pious knight who, jour- 
neying one day through the forest, found a beautiful lady 
stripped naked and tied to a tree, her back all covered 
with deep gashes streaming with blood, from a flogging 

* " The mare in nightmare means spirit, elf, or nymph ; compare 
Anglo-Saxon wudumcere (wood-mare) = echo." — Tylor, Primitive Cul- 
ture, Vol. II. p. 173. 



94 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



which some bandits had given her. Of course he took 
her home to his castle and married her, and for a while 
they lived very happily together, and the fame of the 
lady's beauty was so great that kings and emperors held 
tournaments in honor of her. But this pious knight 
used to go to mass every Sunday, and greatly was he 
scandalized when he found that his wife would never 
stay to assist in the Credo, but would always get up and 
walk out of church just as the choir struck up. All 
her husband's coaxing was of no use ; threats and en- 
treaties were alike powerless even to elicit an explana- 
tion of this strange conduct. At last the good man de- 
termined to use force ; and so one Sunday, as the lady 
got up to go out, according to custom, he seized her by 
the arm and sternly commanded her to remain. Her 
whole frame was suddenly convulsed, and her dark eyes 
gleamed with weird, unearthly brilliancy. The services 
paused for a moment, and all eyes were turned toward 
the knight and his lady. " In God's name, tell me what 
thou art," shouted the knight ; and instantly, says the 
chronicler, " the bodily form of the lady melted away, 
and was seen no more ; whilst, with a cry of anguish and 
of terror, an evil spirit of monstrous form rose from the 
ground, clave the chapel roof asunder, and disappeared in 
the air." 

In a Danish legend, the Mara betrays her affinity to 
the Mxies, or Swan-maidens. A peasant discovered that 
his sweetheart was in the habit of coming to him by 
night as a Mara. He kept strict watch until he dis- 
covered her creeping into the room through a small 
knot-hole in the door. Next day he made a peg, and 
after she had come to him, drove in the peg so that she 
was unable to escape. They were married and lived to- 
gether many years ; but one night it happened that the 



WEREWOLVES AND SWAN-MAIDENS. 95 



man, joking with his wife about the way in which he had 
secured her, drew the peg from the knot-hole, that she 
might see how she had entered his room. As she peeped 
through, she became suddenly quite small, passed out, 
and was never seen again. 

The well-known pathological phenomena of nightmare 
ere sufficient to account for the mediseval theory of a 
fiend who sits upon one's bosom and hinders respiration ; 
but as we compare these various legends relating to the 
Mara, we see that a more recondite explanation is needed 
to account for all her peculiarities. Indigestion may 
interfere with our breathing, but it does not make beau- 
tiful women crawl through keyholes, nor does it bring 
wives from the spirit-world. The Mara belongs to an 
ancient family, and in passing from the regions of monk- 
ish superstition to those of pure mythology we find that, 
like her kinsman the werewolf, she had once seen better 
days. Christianity made a demon of the Mara, and adopted 
the theory that Satan employed these seductive creatures 
as agents for ruining human souls. Such is the character 
of the knight's wife, in the monkish legend just cited. But 
in the Danish tale the Mara appears as one of that large 
family of supernatural wives who are permitted to live 
with mortal men under certain conditions, but who are 
compelled to flee away when these conditions are broken, 
as is always sure to be the case. The eldest and one of 
the loveliest of this family is the Hindu nymph Urvasi, 
whose love adventures with Pururavas are narrated in the 
Puranas, and form the subject of the well-known and 
exquisite Sanskrit drama by Kalidasa. Urvasi is allowed 
to live with Pururavas so long as she does not see him 
undressed. But one night her kinsmen, the Gandharvas, 
or cloud-demons, vexed at her long absence from heaven, 
resolved to get her away from her mortal companion. 



9 6 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



They stole a pet lamb which had been tied at the foot of 
her couch, whereat she bitterly upbraided her husband. 
In rage and mortification, Pururavas sprang up without 
throwing on his tunic, and grasping his sword sought the 
robber. Then the wicked Gandharvas sent a flash of 
lightning, and Urvasi, seeing her naked husband, instantly 
vanished. 

The different versions of this legend, which have been 
elaborately analyzed by comparative mythologists, leave 
no doubt that Urvasi is one of the dawn-nymphs or 
bright fleecy clouds of early morning, which vanish as 
the splendour of the sun is unveiled. We saw, in the 
preceding paper, that the ancient Aryans regarded the 
sky as a sea or great lake, and that the clouds were ex- 
plained variously as Phaiakian ships with bird-like beaks 
sailing over this lake, or as bright birds of divers shapes 
and hues. The light fleecy cirrhi were regarded as mer- 
maids, or as swans, or as maidens with swan's plumage. 
In Sanskrit they are called Apsaras, or " those who move 
in the water," and the Elves and Maras of Teutonic my- 
thology have the same- significance. Urvasi appears in 
one legend as a bird ; and a South German prescription 
for getting rid of the Mara asserts that if she be wrapped 
up in the bedclothes and firmly held, a white dove will 
forthwith fly from the room, leaving the bedclothes 
empty.* 

In the story of Melusina the cloud-maiden appears as 
a kind of mermaid, but in other respects the legend re- 
sembles that of Urvasi. Eaymond, Count de la Foret, 
of Poitou, having by an accident killed his patron and 
benefactor during a hunting excursion, fled in terror and 

* See Kuhn, Herabkunft des Feiiers, p. 91 ; Weber, Indische Studien, 
I. 197 ; Wolf, Beitrage zur deutschen Mythologie, II. 233 - 281 > 
Miiller, Chips, II. 114 - 128. 



WEREWOLVES AND SWAN-MAIDENS. 97 



despair into the deep recesses of the forest. All the 
afternoon and evening he wandered through the thick 
dark woods, until at midnight he came upon a strange 
scene. All at once " the boughs of the trees became less 
interlaced, and the trunks fewer; next moment his 
horse, crashing through the shrubs, brought him out on 
a pleasant glade, white with rime, and illumined by the 
new moon ; in the midst bubbled up a limpid fountain, 
and flowed away over a pebbly-floor with a soothing mur- 
mur. Near the fountain-head sat three maidens in glim- 
mering white dresses, with long waving golden hair, and 
faces of inexpressible beauty." * One of them advanced 
to meet Eaymond, and according to all mythological 
precedent, they were betrothed before daybreak. In due 
time the fountain-nymph f became Countess de la Foret, 
but her husband was given to understand that all her 
Saturdays would be passed in strictest seclusion, upon 
which he must never dare to intrude, under penalty of 
losing her forever. For many years all went well, save 
that the fair Melusina's children were, without excep- 
tion, misshapen or disfigured. But after a while this 
strange weekly seclusion got bruited about all over the 
neighbourhood, and people shook their heads and looked 
grave about it. So many gossiping tales came to the 
Count's ears, that he began to grow anxious and suspi- 
cious, and at last he determined to know the worst. He 
went one Saturday to Melusina's private apartments, and 
going through one empty room after another, at last came 
to a locked door which opened into a bath ; looking 
through a keyhole, there he saw the Countess transformed 
from the waist downwards into a fish, disporting herself 

* Baring-Gould, Curious Myths, II. 207. 

+ The word nymph itself means " cloud-maiden," as is illustrated by 
the kinship between the Greek v^fi^yj and the Latin nubes. 

5 Q 



9 8 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



like a mermaid in the water. Of course he could not 
keep the secret, but when some time afterwards they 
quarrelled, must needs address her as " a vile serpent, 
contaminator of his honourable race." So she disap- 
peared through the window, but ever afterward hovered 
about her husband's castle of Lusignan, like a Banshee, 
whenever one of its lords was about to die. 

The well-known story of Undine is similar to that of 
Melusina, save that the naiad's desire to obtain a human 
soul is a conception foreign to the spirit of the myth, 
and marks the degradation which Christianity had in- 
flicted upon the denizens of fairy-land. In one of 
Dasent's tales the water-maiden is replaced by a kind 
of werewolf. A white bear marries a young girl, but 
assumes the human shape at night. She is never to 
look upon him in his human shape, but how could a 
young bride be expected to obey such an injunction as 
that ? She lights a candle while he is sleeping, and dis- 
covers the handsomest prince in the world ; unluckily she 
drops tallow on his shirt, and that tells the story. But 
she is more fortunate than poor Eaymond, for after a 
tiresome journey to the " land east of the sun and west 
of the moon," and an arduous washing-match with a par- 
cel of ugly Trolls, she washes out the spots, and ends her 
husband's enchantment.* 

In the majority of these legends, however, the Apsa- 
ras, or cloud-maiden, has a shirt of swan's feathers which 
plays the same part as the wolfskin cape or girdle of the 
werewolf. If you could get hold of a werewolf's sack 
and burn it, a permanent cure was effected. ~No dangei 
of a relapse, unless the Devil furnished him with a new 
wolfskin. So the swan-maiden kept her human form, as 

* This is substantially identical with the stories of Beauty and th« 
Beast, Eros and Psyche, Gandharba Sena, etc. 



WEREWOLVES AND SWAN-MAIDENS. 99 

long as she was deprived of her tunic of feathers. Indo- 
European folk-lore teems with stories of swan-maidens 
forcibly wooed and won by mortals who had stolen their 
clothes. A man travelling along the road passes by a 
lake where several lovely girls are bathing ; their dresses, 
made of feathers curiously and daintily woven, lie on the 
shore. He approaches the place cautiously and steals 
one of these dresses.* When the girls have finished 
their bathing, they all come and get their dresses and 
swim away as swans ; but the one whose dress is stolen 
must needs stay on shore and marry the thief. It is 
needless to add that they live happily together for many 
years, or that finally the good man accidentally leaves 
the cupboard door unlocked, whereupon his wife gets back 
her swan-shirt and flies away from him, never to return. 
But it is not always a shirt of feathers. In one German 
story, a nobleman hunting deer finds a maiden bathing 
in a clear pool in the forest. He runs stealthily up to 
her and seizes her necklace, at which she loses the 
power to flee. They are married, and she bears seven 
sons at once, all of whom have gold chains about their 
necks, and are able to transform themselves into swans 
whenever they like. A Flemish legend tells of three 
Nixies, or water-sprites, who came out of the Meuse one 
autumn evening, and helped the villagers celebrate the 
end of the vintage. Such graceful dancers had never 
been seen in Flanders, and they could sing as well as 
they could dance. As the night was warm, one of them 
took off her gloves and gave them to her partner to hold 
for her. When the clock struck twelve the other two 

* The feather-dress reappears in the Arabian story of Hassan of El- 
Basrah, who by stealing it secures possession of the Jinniya. See Lane's 
Arabian Nights, Vol. III. p. 380. Ralston, Songs of the Russian Peo- 
ple, p. 179. 



L.ofC. 



IOO 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



started off in hot haste, and then there was a hue and 
cry for gloves. The lad would keep them as love-tokens, 
and so the poor Xixie had to go home without them; 
but she must have died on the way, for next morn- 
ing the waters of the Meuse were blood-red, and those 
damsels never returned. 

In the Faro Islands it is believed that seals cast off 
their skins every ninth night, assume human forms, and 
sing and dance like men and women until daybreak, 
when they resume their skins and their seal natures. 
Of course a man once found and hid one of these seal- 
skins, and so got a mermaid for a wife ; and of course she 
recovered the skin and escaped.* On the coasts of Ire- 
land it is supposed to be quite an ordinary thing for 
young sea-fairies to get human husbands in this way; 
the brazen things even come to shore on purpose, and 
leave their red caps lying around for young men to pick 
up ; but it behooves the husband to keep a strict watch 
over the red cap, if he would not see his children left 
motherless. 

This mermaid's cap has contributed its quota to the 
superstitions of witchcraft. An Irish story tells how Eed 
James was aroused from sleep one night by noises in the 
kitchen. Going down to the door, he saw a lot of old 
women drinking punch around the fireplace, and laugh- 
ing and joking with his housekeeper. When the punch- 
bowl was empty, they all put on red caps, and singing 

" By yarrow and rue, 
And my red cap too, 

Hie me over to England," 

they flew up chimney. So Jimmy burst into the room, 
and seized the housekeeper's cap, and went along with 

* Thorpe, Northern Mythology, III. 173 ; Kennedy, Fictions of the 
Irish Celts, p. 123. 



WEREWOLVES AND SWAN-MAIDENS. 10 1 



them. They flew across the sea to a castle in Eng- 
land, passed through the keyholes from room to room 
and into the cellar, where they had a famous carouse. 
Unluckily Jimmy, being unused to such good cheer, got 
drunk, and forgot to put on his cap when the others did. 
So next morning the lord's butler found him dead-drunk 
on the cellar floor, surrounded by empty casks. He was 
sentenced to be hung without any trial worth speaking 
of; but as he was carted to the gallows an old woman 
cried out, " Ach, Jimmy alanna ! Would you be afther 
dyin' in a strange land without your red birredh ? " The 
lord made no objections, and so the red cap was brought 
and put on him. Accordingly when Jimmy had got to 
the gallows and was making his last speech for the edi- 
fication of the spectators, he unexpectedly and somewhat 
irrelevantly exclaimed, " By yarrow and rue," etc., and 
was off like a rocket, shooting through the blue air en 
route for old Ireland.* 

In another Irish legend an enchanted ass comes into 
the kitchen of a great house every night, and washes the 
dishes and scours the tins, so that the servants lead an 
easy life of it. After a while in their exuberant grati- 
tude they offer him any present for which he may feel 
inclined to ask. He desires only " an ould coat, to keep 
the chill off of him these could nights " ; but as soon as 
he gets into the coat he resumes his human form and bids 
them good by, and thenceforth they may wash their own 
dishes and scour their own tins, for all him. 

But we are diverging from the subject of swan-maid- 
ens, and are in danger of losing ourselves in that laby- 
rinth of popular fancies which is more intricate than any 
that Daidalos ever planned. The significance of all these 
sealskins and feather-dresses and mermaid caps and were- 

* Kennedy, Fictions of the Irish Celts, p. 168. 



102 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



wolf-girdles may best be sought in the etymology of words 
like the German leichnam, in which the body is described 
as a garment of flesh for the soul.* In the naive phi- 
losophy of primitive thinkers, the soul, in passing from 
one visible shape to another, had only to put on the out- 
ward integument of the creature in which it wished to 
incarnate itself. With respect to the mode of metamor- 
phosis, there is little difference between the werewolf and 
the swan-maiden ; and the similarity is no less striking 
between the genesis of the two conceptions. The origi- 
nal werewolf is the night-wind, regarded now as a man- 
like deity and now as a howling lupine fiend ; and the 
original swan-maiden is the light fleecy cloud, regarded 
either as a woman-like goddess or as a bird swimming in 
the sky sea. The one conception has been productive of 
little else but horrors ; the other has given rise to a great 
variety of fanciful creations, from the treacherous mer- 
maid and the fiendish nightmare to the gentle Undine, 
the charming Nausikaa, and the stately Muse of classic 
antiquity. 

We have seen that the original werewolf, howling in 
the wintry blast, is a kind of psychopomp, or leader of 
departed souls ; he is the wild ancestor of the death-dog, 
whose voice under the window of a sick-chamber is even 
now a sound of ill-omen. The swan-maiden has also 
been supposed to summon the dying to her home in the 
Phaiakian land. The Valkyries, with their shirts of swan- 
plumage, who hovered over Scandinavian battle-fields to 
receive the souls of falling heroes, were identical with 
the Hindu Apsaras ; and the Houris of the Mussulman 
belong to the same family. Even for the angels, — 
women with large wings, who are seen in popular pictures 
bearing mortals on high towards heaven, — we can hardly 

* Baring-Gould, Book of Werewolves, p. 163. 



WEREWOLVES AND SWAN-MAIDENS. 103 



claim a different kinship. Melusina, when she leaves 
the castle of Lusignan, becomes a Banshee ; and it has 
been a common superstition among sailors, that the 
appearance of a mermaid, with her comb and looking- 
glass, foretokens shipwreck, with the loss of all on 
board. 

October, 1870. 



104 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



IV. 



LIGHT AND DAEKNESS. 



"HEX Maitland blasphemously asserted that God 



t V was but " a Bogie of the nursery," he unwittingly 
made a remark as suggestive in point of philology as it 
was crude and repulsive in its atheism. When examined 
with the lenses of linguistic science, the " Bogie " or 
" Bug-a-boo " or " Bugbear " of nursery lore turns out 
to be identical, not only with the fairy " Puck," whom 
Shakespeare has immortalized, but also with the Sla- 
vonic " Bog " and the " Baga " of the Cuneiform Inscrip- 
tions, both of which are names for the Supreme Being. 
If we proceed further, and inquire after the ancestral 
form of these epithets, — so strangely incongruous in 
their significations, — we shall find it in the Old Aryan 
" Bhaga," which reappears unchanged in the Sanskrit of 
the Vedas, and has left a memento of itself in the sur- 
name of the Phrygian Zeus " Bagaios." It seems origi- 
nally to have denoted either the unclouded sun or the 
sky of noonday illumined by the solar rays. In Sayana's 
commentary on the Eig-Veda, Bhaga is enumerated among 
the seven (or eight) sons of Aditi, the boundless Orient ; 
and he is elsewhere described as the lord of life, the giver 
of bread, and the bringer of happiness.* 

Thus the same name which, to the Vedic poet, to the 
Persian of the time of Xerxes, and to the modern Eus- 

* Muir's Sanskrit Texts, Vol. IV. p. 12 ; MtQler, Kig-Veda Sanhita, 
Vol. I. pp. 230 - 251 ; Tick, "Woerterbuch der Indogermanischen Grand- 
sprache, p. 124, v. Bhaga. 




LIGHT AND DARKNESS. 



105 



sian, suggests the supreme majesty of deity, is in English 
associated with an ugly and ludicrous fiend, closely akin 
to that grotesque Northern Devil of whom Southey was 
unable to think without laughing. Such is the irony of 
fate toward a deposed deity. The German name for idol 
— Abgott, that is, " ex-god," or " dethroned god " — sums 
up in a single etymology the history of the havoc wrought 
by monotheism among the ancient symbols of deity. In 
the hospitable Pantheon of the Greeks and Eomans a 
niche was always in readiness for every new divinity 
who could produce respectable credentials ; but the tri- 
umph of monotheism converted the stately mansion into 
a Pandemonium peopled with fiends. To the monotheist 
an " ex-god " was simply a devilish deceiver of mankind 
whom the true God had succeeded in vanquishing ; and 
thus the word demon, which to the ancient meant a di- 
vine or semi-divine being, came to be applied to fiends 
exclusively. Thus the Teutonic races, who preserved the 
name of their highest divinity, Odin, — originally, Guo- 
dan, — by which to designate the God of the Christian,* 
were unable to regard the Bog of ancient tradition as 
anything but an " ex-god," or vanquished demon. 

The most striking illustration of this process is to be 
found in the word devil itself. To a reader unfamiliar 
with the endless tricks which language delights in play- 
ing, it may seem shocking to be told that the Gypsies 
use the word devil as the name of God. - )" This, however, 

* In the North American Review, October, 1869, p. 354, I have col- 
lected a number of facts which seem to me to prove beyond question that 
the name God is derived from Guodan, the original form of Odin, the 
supreme deity of our Pagan forefathers. The case is exactly parallel to 
that of the French Dfcu, which is descended from the Deus of the pagan 
Roman. 

+ See Pott, Die Zigeuner, II. 311 ; Kuhn, Beitrage, I. 147. Yet 
in the worship of dewel by the Gypsies is to be found the element of 



106 MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 

is not because these people have made the archfiend an 
object of worship, but because the Gypsy language, de- 
scending directly from the Sanskrit, has retained in its 
primitive exalted sense a word which the English language 
has received only in its debased and perverted sense. 
The Teutonic words devil, teufel, diuval, djofull, djevful, 
may all be traced back to the Zend dev* a name in which 
is implicitly contained the record of the oldest monothe- 
istic revolution known to history. The influence of the 
so-called Zoroastrian reform upon the long-subsequent 
development of Christianity will receive further notice 
in the course of this paper ; for the present it is enough 
to know that it furnished for all Christendom the name 
by which it designates the author of evil. To the Parsee 
follower of Zarathustra the name of the Devil has very 
nearly the same signification as to the Christian ; yet, as 
Grimm has shown, it is nothing else than a corruption 
of deva, the Sanskrit name for God. ' When Zarathustra 
overthrew the primeval Aryan nature- worship in Bactria, 
this name met the same evil fate which in early Christian 
times overtook the word demon, and from a symbol of 
reverence became henceforth a symbol of detestation.*)* 
But throughout the rest of the Aryan world it achieved 

diabolism invariably present in barbaric worship. "Dewel, the great 
god in heaven (dewa, deus), is rather feared than loved by these weather- 
beaten outcasts, for he harms them on their wanderings with his thun- 
der and lightning, his snow and rain, and his stars interfere with their 
dark doings. Therefore they curse him foully when misfortune falls on 
them ; and when a child dies, they say that Dewel has eaten it." Tylor, 
Primitive Culture, Vol. II. p. 248. 

* See Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, 939. 

t The Buddhistic as well as the Zarathustrian reformation degraded 
the Vedic gods into demons. " In Buddhism we find these ancient de- 
vas, Indra and the rest, carried about at shows, as servants of Buddha, 
*cs goblins, or fabulous heroes." Max Miiller, Chips, I. 25. This is like 
"lie Christian change of Odin into an ogre, and of Thor into the Devil. 



LIGHT AND DARKNESS. 



107 



a nobler career, producing the Greek theos, the Lithuanian 
diewas, the Latin deus, and hence the modern French 
JDieu, all meaning God. 

If we trace back this remarkable word to its primitive 
source in that once lost but now partially recovered moth- 
er-tongue from which all our Aryan languages are de- 
scended, we find a root div or dyu, meaning " to shine." 
From the first-mentioned form comes deva, with its nu- 
merous progeny of good and evil appellatives ; from the 
latter is derived the name of Dyaus, with its brethren, 
Zeus and Jupiter. In Sanskrit dyu, as a noun, means 
" sky " and " day " ; and there are many passages in the 
Eig-Veda where the character of the god Dyaus, as the 
personification of the sky or the brightness of the ethereal 
heavens, is unmistakably apparent. This key unlocks 
for us one of the secrets of Greek mythology. So long 
as there was for Zeus no better etymology than that 
which assigned it to the root zen, " to live," * there was 
little hope of understanding the nature of Zeus. But 
when we learn that Zeus is identical with Dyaus, the 
bright sky, we are enabled to understand Horace's ex- 
pression, " sub Jove frigido," and the prayer of the Athe- 
nians, " Eain, rain, dear Zeus, on the land of the Atheni- 
ans, and on the fields." f Such expressions as these were 
retained by the Greeks and Eomans long after they had 
forgotten that their supreme deity was once the sky. Yet 
even the Brahman, from whose mind the physical signifi- 

* Tieis — Ala — Zijva — 81 bv tfjv ael ird<Ti rocs £Qxnv virdpxei. Plato, 
Kratylos, p. 396, A., with Stallbaum's note. See also Proklos, Comm. 
ad Timseum, II. p. 226, Schneider ; and compare Pseudo-Aristotle, De 
Mundo, p. 401, a, 15, who adopts the etymology 8i 8v fw/xev. See also 
Diogenes Laertius, VII. 147. 

+ Ei>xv ' Ad-qvalwv, §crov, daov, <3 <f>l\e ZeO, Kara, ttjs dpoijpas t&v 'Adv r 
valwv Kal tG>v irefowv. Marcus Aurelius, v. 7 ; 5e 5' &pa Zei>s avvex^. 
Horn. Iliad, xii. 25 ; cf. Petronius Arbiter, Sat. xliv. 



108 MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 

cance of the god's name never wholly disappeared, could 
speak of him as Father Dyaus, the great Pitri, or ances- 
tor of gods and men ; and in this reverential name Dyaus 
pitar may be seen the exact equivalent of the Eoman's 
Jupiter, or Jove the Father. The same root can be fol- 
lowed into Old German, where Zio is the god of day ; 
and into Anglo-Saxon, where Tiwsdaeg, or the day of 
Zeus, is the ancestral form of Tuesday. 

Thus we again reach the same results which were ob- 
tained from the examination of the name Ehaga. These 
various names for the supreme Aryan god, which without 
the help afforded by the Yedas could never have been 
interpreted, are seen to have been originally applied to 
the sun-illumined firmament. Countless other examples, 
when similarly analyzed, show that the earliest Aryan 
conception of a Divine Power, nourishing man and sus- 
taining the universe, was suggested by the light of the 
mighty Sun ; who, as modern science has shown, is the 
originator of all life and motion upon the globe, and 
whom the ancients delighted to believe the source, not 
only of "the golden light,"* but of everything that is 
bright, joy-giving, and pure. Nevertheless, in accepting 
this conclusion as well established by linguistic science, 
we must be on our guard against an error into which 
writers on mythology are very liable to fall. Neither 
sky nor sun nor light of day, neither Zeus nor Apollo, 
neither Dyaus nor Indra, was ever worshipped by the 
ancient Aryan in anything like a monotheistic sense. 
To interpret Zeus or Jupiter as originally the supreme 
Aryan god, and to regard classic paganism as one of the 
degraded remnants of a primeval monotheism, is to sin 
against the canons of a sound inductive philosophy. 

* "II Sol, dell aurea luce eterno fonte." Tasso, Gerusalemme, XV. 
47 ; cf. Dante, Paradiso, X. 28. 



LIGHT AND DARKNESS. IO9 

Philology itself teaches us that this could not have been 
so. Father Dyaus was originally the bright sky and 
nothing more. Although his name became generalized, 
in the classic languages, into deus, or God, it is quite 
certain that in early days, before the Aryan separation, 
it had acquired no such exalted significance. It was 
only in Greece and Borne — or, we may say, among the 
still united Italo-Hellenic tribes — that Jupiter-Zeus 
attained a pre-eminence over all other deities. The 
people of Iran quite rejected him, the Teutons preferred 
Thor and Odin, and in India he was superseded, first by 
Indra, afterwards by Brahma and Yishnu. We need 
not, therefore, look for a single supreme divinity among 
the old Aryans ; nor may we expect to find any sense, 
active or dormant, of monotheism in the primitive intel- 
ligence of uncivilized men.* The whole fabric of com- 
parative mythology, as at present constituted, and as 
described above, in the first of these papers, rests upon 
the postulate that the earliest religion was pure fetichism. 

In the unsystematic nature-worship of the old Aryans 
the gods are presented to us only as vague powers, with 
their nature and attributes dimly defined, and their rela- 
tions to each other fluctuating and often contradictory. 
There is no theogony, no regular subordination of one 
deity to another. The same pair of divinities appear 
now as father and daughter, now as brother and sister, 

* The Aryans were, however, doubtless better off than the tribes of 
North America. "In no Indian language could the early missionaries 
find a word to express the idea of God. Manitou and OM meant any- 
thing endowed with supernatural powers, from a snake-skin or a greasy 
Indian conjurer up to Manabozho and Jouskeha. The priests were 
forced to use a circumlocution, — 'the great chief of men,' or 'he who 
lives in the sky.' " Parkman, Jesuits in North America, p. lxxix. 
" The Algonquins used no oaths, for their language supplied none ; 
doubtless because their mythology had no beings sufficiently distinct to 
swear by." Ibid, p. 31. 



no 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



now as husband and wife; and again they quite lose 
their personality, and are represented as mere natural 
phenomena. As Muller observes, "The poets of the 
Veda indulged freely in theogonic speculations without 
being frightened by any contradictions. They knew of 
Indra as the greatest of gods, they knew of Agni as the 
god of gods, they knew of Varuna as the ruler of all ; but 
they were by no means startled at the idea that their 
Indra had a mother, or that their Agni [Latin ignis] was 
born like a babe from the friction of two fire-sticks, or 
that Varuna and his brother Mitra were nursed in the 
lap of Aditi." * Thus we have seen Bhaga, the day- 
light, represented as the offspring of Aditi, the boundless 
Orient; but he had several brothers, and among them 
were Mitra, the sun, Varuna, the overarching firmament, 
and Vivasvat, the vivifying sun. Manifestly we have 
here but so many different names for what is at bottom 
one and the same conception. The common element 
which, in Dyaus and Varuna, in Bhaga and Indra, was 
made an object of worship, is the brightness, warmth, 
and life of day, as contrasted with the darkness, cold, and 
seeming death of the night-time. And this common 
element was personified in as many different ways as 
the unrestrained fancy of the ancient worshipper saw fit 
to devise.*|- 

Thus we begin to see why a few simple objects, like 
the sun, the sky, the dawn, and the night, should be repre- 
sented in mythology by such a host of gods, goddesses, 
and heroes. For at one time the Sun is represented as 
the conqueror of hydras and dragons who hide away from 
men the golden treasures of light and warmth, and at 
another time he is represented as a weary voyager trav- 

* Muller, Rig-Veda-Sanliita, I. 230. 

f Compare the remarks of Breal, Hercule et Cacus, p. 13. 



LIGHT AND DARKNESS. 



Ill 



ersing the sky-sea amid many perils, with the steadfast 
purpose of returning to his western home and his twi- 
light bride ; hence the different conceptions of Herakles, 
Bellerophon, and Odysseus. Now he is represented as 
the son of the Dawn, and again, with equal propriety, as 
the son of the Night, and the fickle lover of the Dawn ; 
hence we have, on the one hand, stories of a virgin 
mother who dies in giving birth to a hero, and, on the 
other hand, stories of a beautiful maiden who is forsaken 
and perhaps cruelly slain by her treacherous lover. In- 
deed, the Sun's adventures with so many dawn-maidens 
have given him quite a bad character, and the legends 
are numerous in which he appears as the prototype of 
Don Juan. Yet again his separation from the bride 
of his youth is described as due to no fault of his own, 
but to a resistless decree of fate, which hurries him away, 
as Aineias was compelled to abandon Dido. Or, accord- 
ing to a third and equally plausible notion, he is a hero 
of ascetic virtues, and the dawn-maiden is a wicked 
enchantress, daughter of the sensual Aphrodite, who 
vainly endeavours to seduce him. In the story of Odys- 
seus these various conceptions are blended together. 
When enticed by artful women,* he yields for a while 
to the temptation; but by and by his longing to see 
Penelope takes him homeward, albeit with a record 
which Penelope might not altogether have liked. Again, 
though the Sun, " always roaming with a hungry heart," 

* It should be borne in mind, however, that one of the women who 
tempt Odysseus is not a dawn-maiden, but a goddess of darkness ; 
Kalypso answers to Yenus-Ursula in the myth of Tannhauser. Kirke, 
on the other hand, seems to be a dawn-maiden, like Medeia, whom she 
resembles. In her the wisdom of the dawn-goddess Athene, the loftiest 
of Greek divinities, becomes degraded into the art of an enchantress. 
She reappears, in the Arabian Nights, as the wicked Queen Labe, whose 
sorcery none of her lovers can baffle, save Beder, king of Persia. 



112 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



has seen many cities and customs of strange men, he is 
nevertheless confined to a single path, — a circumstance 
which seems to have occasioned much speculation in the 
primeval mind. Garcilaso de la Vega relates of a certain 
Peruvian Inca, who seems to have been an "infidel" 
with reference to the orthodox mythology of his day, 
that he thought the Sun was not such a mighty god after 
all ; for if he were, he would wander about the heavens 
at random instead of going forever, like a horse in a 
treadmill, along the same course. The American Indians 
explained this circumstance by myths which told how 
the Sun was once caught and tied with a chain which 
would only let him swing a little way to one side or the 
other. The ancient Aryan developed the nobler myth of 
the labours of Herakles, performed in obedience to the 
bidding of Eurystheus. Again, the Sun must needs 
destroy its parents, the Night and the Dawn; and 
accordingly his parents, forewarned by prophecy, expose 
him in infancy, or order him to be put to death ; but his 
tragic destiny never fails to be accomplished to the letter. 
And again the Sun, who engages in quarrels not his own, 
is sometimes represented as retiring moodily from the 
sight of men„ like Achilleus and Meleagros : he is short- 
lived and ill-fated, born to do much good and to be 
repaid with ingratitude ; his life depends on the duration 
of a burning brand, and when that is extinguished he 
must die. 

The myth of the great Theban hero, Oidipous, well 
illustrates the multiplicity of conceptions which clustered 
about the daily career of the solar orb. His father, Laios, 
had been warned by the Delphic oracle that he was in 
danger of death from his own son. The newly born 
Oidipous was therefore exposed on the hillside ; but, like 
Eomulus and Eemus, and all infants similarly situated 



LIGHT AND DARKNESS. 



"3 



in legend, was duly rescued. He was taken to Corinth, 
where he grew up to manhood. Journeying once to 
Thebes, he got into a quarrel with an old man whom he 
met on the road, and slew him, who was none other than 
his father, Laios. Eeaching Thebes, he found the city 
harassed by the Sphinx, who afflicted the land with 
drought until she should receive an answer to her riddles. 
Oidipous destroyed the monster by solving her dark say- 
ings, and as a reward received the kingdom, with his own 
mother, Iokaste, as his bride. Then the Erinyes has- 
tened the discovery of these dark deeds ; Iokaste died in 
her bridal chamber ; and Oidipous, having blinded himself, 
fled to the grove of the Eumenides, near Athens, where, 
amid flashing lightning and peals of thunder, he died. 

Oidipous is the Sun. Like all the solar heroes, from 
Herakles and Perseus to Sigurd and William Tell, he 
performs his marvellous deeds at the behest of others. 
His father, Laios, is none other than the Vedic Dasyu, 
the night-demon who is sure to be destroyed by his solar 
offspring. In the evening, Oidipous is united to the 
Dawn, the mother who had borne him at daybreak ; and 
here the original story doubtless ended. In the Vedic 
hymns we find Indra, the Sun, born of Dahana (Daphne), 
the Dawn, whom he afterwards, in the evening twilight, 
marries. To the Indian mind the story was here com- 
plete; but the Greeks had forgotten and outgrown the 
primitive signification of the myth. To them Oidipous 
and Iokaste were human, or at least anthropomorphic 
beings ; and a marriage between them was a fearful crime 
which called for bitter expiation. Thus the latter part 
of the story arose in the effort to satisfy a moral feeling. 
As the name of Laios denotes the dark night, so, like 
Iole, Oinone, and Iamos, the word Iokaste signifies the 
delicate violet tints of the morning and evening clouda 

H 



H4 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



Oidipous was exposed, like Paris upon Ida (a Vedic 
word meaning " the earth "), because the sunlight in the 
morning lies upon the hillside.* He is borne on to the 
destruction of his father and the incestuous marriage 
with his mother by an irresistible Moira, or Fate; the 
sun cannot but slay the darkness and hasten to the couch 
of the violet twilight.-f- The Sphinx is the storm-demon 
who sits on the cloud-rock and imprisons the rain ; she 
is the same as Medusa, Ahi, or Echidna, and Chimaira, 
and is akin to the throttling snakes of darkness which 
the jealous Here sent to destroy Herakles in his cradle. 
The idea was not derived from Egypt, but the Greeks, on 
finding Egyptian figures resembling their conception of 
the Sphinx, called them by the same name. The omni- 
scient Sun comprehends the sense of her dark mutterings, 
and destroys her, as Indra slays Vritra, bringing down 
rain upon the parched earth. The Erinyes, who bring to 
light the crimes of Oidipous, have been explained, in a 
previous paper, as the personification of daylight, which 
reveals the evil deeds done under the cover of night. 
The grove of the Erinyes, like the garden of the Hyper- 
boreans, represents " the fairy network of clouds, which 
are the first to receive and the last to lose the light 
of the sun in the morning and in the evening ; hence, 
although Oidipous dies in a thunder-storm, yet the 
Eumenides are kind to him, and his last hour is one of 

* The Persian Cyrus is an historical personage ; but the story of his 
perils in infancy belongs to solar mythology as much as the stories of 
the magic sleep of Charlemagne and Barbarossa. His grandfather, 
Astyages, is purely a mythical creation, his name being identical with 
that of the night-demon, Azidahaka, who appears in the Shah-Nameh 
as the biting serpent Zohak. See Cox, Mythology of the Aryan Nations, 
II. 358. 

t In mediaeval legend this resistless Moira is transformed into the 
curse which prevents the Wandering Jew from resting until the day of 
judgment. 



LIGHT AND DARKNESS. 



"5 



deep peace and tranquillity." * To the last remains with 
him his daughter Antigone, " she who is born opposite," 
the pale light which springs up opposite to the setting 
sun. 

These examples show that a story-root may be as 
prolific of heterogeneous offspring as a word-root. Just 
as we find the root speck, " to look," begetting words so 
various as sceptic, bishop, speculate, conspicuous, species, 
and spice, we must expect to find a simple representation 
of the diurnal course of the sun, like those lyrically given 
in the Veda, branching off into stories as diversified as 
those of Oidipous, Herakles, Odysseus, and Siegfried. 
In fact, the types upon which stories are constructed are 
wonderfully few. Some clever playwright — I believe 
it was Scribe — has said that there are only seven pos- 
sible dramatic situations; that is, all the plays in the 
world may be classed with some one of seven arche- 
typal dramas.-f* If this be true, the astonishing complex- 
ity of mythology taken in the concrete, as compared 
with its extreme simplicity when analyzed, need not sur- 
prise us. 

The extreme limits of divergence between stories 
descended from a common root are probably reached in 
the myths of light and darkness with which the present 
discussion is mainly concerned. The subject will be 
best elucidated by taking a single one of these myths 
and following its various fortunes through different 
regions of the Aryan world. The myth of Hercules and 

* Cox, Manual of Mythology, p. 134. 

+ In his interesting appendix to Henderson's Folk Lore of the ^Northern 
Counties of England, Mr. Baring-Gould has made an ingenious and 
praiseworthy attempt to reduce the entire existing mass of household 
legends to about fifty story-roots ; and his list, though both redundant 
and defective, is nevertheless, as an empirical classification, very instruc- 
tive. 



Il6 MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 

Cacus has been treated by M. Breal in an essay which is 
one of the most valuable contributions ever made to the 
study of comparative mythology; and while following 
his footsteps our task will be an easy one. 

The battle between Hercules and Cacus, although one 
of the oldest of the traditions common to the whole 
Indo-European race, appears in Italy as a purely local 
legend, and is narrated as such by Virgil, in the eighth 
book of the iEneid ; by Livy, at the beginning of his his- 
tory ; and by Propertius and Ovid. Hercules, journeying 
through Italy after his victory over Geryon, stops to rest 
by the bank of the Tiber. While he is taking his repose, 
the three-headed monster Cacus, a son of Vulcan and a 
formidable brigand, comes and steals his cattle, and drags 
them tail-foremost to a secret cavern in the rocks. But 
the lowing of the cows arouses Hercules, and he runs 
toward the cavern where the robber, already frightened, 
has taken refuge. Armed with a huge flinty rock, he 
breaks open the entrance of the cavern, and confronts 
the demon within, who vomits forth flames at him and 
roars like the thunder in the storm-cloud. After a short 
combat, his hideous body falls at the feet of the invincible 
hero, who erects on the spot an altar to Jupiter Inventor, 
in commemoration of the recovery of his cattle. Ancient 
Eome teemed with reminiscences of this event, which 
Livy regarded as first in the long series of the exploits 
of his countrymen. The place where Hercules pastured 
his oxen was known long after as the Forum Boarium ; 
near it the Porta Trigemina preserved the recollection of 
the monster's triple head ; and in the time of Diodorus 
Siculus sight-seers were shown the cavern of Cacus on 
the slope of the Aventine. Every tenth day the earlier 
generations of Romans celebrated the victory with solemn 
sacrifices at the Ara Maxima ; and on days of triumph 



LIGHT AND DARKNESS. 



117 



the fortunate general deposited there a tithe of his booty, 
to be distributed among the citizens. 

In this famous myth, however, the god Hercules did 
not originally figure. The Latin Hercules was an essen- 
tially peaceful and domestic deity, watching over house- 
holds and enclosures, and nearly akin to Terminus and 
the Penates. He does not appear to have been a solar 
divinity at all. But the purely accidental resemblance 
of his name to that of the Greek deity Herakles,* and 
the manifest identity of the Gacus-myth with the story 
of the victory of Herakles over Geryon, led to the substi- 
tution of Hercules for the original hero of the legend, 
who was none other than Jupiter, called by his Sabine 
name Sancus. Now Johannes Lydus informs us that, in 
Sabine, Sancus signified " the sky," a meaning which we 
have already seen to belong to the name Jupiter. The 
same substitution of the Greek hero for the Eoman 
divinity led to the alteration of the name of the demon 
overcome by his thunderbolts. The corrupted title Cacus 
was supposed to be identical with the Greek word kakos, 
meaning " evil," and the corruption was suggested by the 
epithet of Herakles, Alexikakos, or " the averter of ill." 
Originally, however, the name was Ccecius, "he who 

* There is nothing in common between the names Hercules and 
Herakles. The latter is a compound, formed like Themistokles ; the 
former is a simple derivative from the root of hercere, "to enclose." If 
Herakles had any equivalent in Latin, it would necessarily begin with 
S, and not with H, as septa corresponds to frrra, sequor to ^irofiai, etc. 
It should be noted, however, that Mommsen, in the fourth edition of 
his History, abandons this view, and observes : ' ' Auch der griechische 
Herakles ist frtih als Herclus, Hercoles, Hercules in Italien einheimisch 
und dort in eigenthumlicher Weise aufgefasst worden, wie es scheint 
zun'achst als Gott des gewagten Gewinns und der ausserordentlichen 
Vermbgensvermehrung." Romische Geschichte, I. 181. One would 
gladly learn Mommsen's reasons for recurring to this apparently less 
defensible opinion. 



Il8 MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 

blinds or darkens," and it corresponds literally to the 
name of the Greek demon Kaikias, whom an old proverb, 
preserv ed by Aulus Gellius, describes as a stealer of the 
clouds.* 

Thus the significance of the myth becomes apparent. 
The three-headed Cacus is seen to be a near kinsman of 
Geryon's three-headed dog Orthros, and of the three- 
headed Kerberos, the hell-hound who guards the dark 
regions below the horizon. He is the original werewolf 
or Bakshasa, the fiend of the storm who steals the bright 
cattle of Helios, and hides them in the black cavernous 
rock, from which they are afterwards rescued by the 
schamir or lightning-stone of the solar hero. The phys- 
ical character of the myth is apparent even in the 
description of Virgil, which reads wonderfully like a 
Yedic hymn in celebration of the exploits of Indra. But 
when we turn to the Yeda itself, we find the correctness 
of the interpretation demonstrated again and again, with 
inexhaustible prodigality of evidence. Here we encoun- 
ter again the three-headed Orthros under the identical 
title of Vritra, "he who shrouds or envelops," called 
also Qushna, " he who parches," Pani, " the robber," and 
Ahi, " the strangler." In many hymns of the Rig-Veda 
the story is told over and over, like a musical theme 
arranged with variations. Indra, the god of light, is a 
herdsman who tends a herd of bright golden or violet- 
coloured cattle. Vritra, a snake-like monster with three 
heads, steals them and hides them in a cavern, but Indra 
slays him as Jupiter slew Caecius, and the cows are 
recovered. The language of the myth is so significant, 
that the Hindu commentators of the Veda have them- 
selves given explanations of it similar to those proposed 

* For the relations between Sancus and Herakles, see Prellei^ 
Romische Mythologie, p. 635 ; Volliner, Mythologie, p. 970. 



LIGHT AND DARKNESS. 



IIQ 



by modem philologists. To them the legend never 
became devoid of sense, as the myth of Geryon appeared 
to Greek scholars like Apollodoros.* 

These celestial cattle, with their resplendent coats of 
purple and gold, are the clouds lit up by the solar rays ; 
but the demon who steals them is not always the fiend 
of the storm, acting in that capacity. They are stolen 
every night by Vritra the concealer, and Csecius the 
darkener, and Indra is obliged to spend hours in looking 
for them, sending Sarama, the inconstant twilight, to 
negotiate for their recovery. Between the storm-myth 
and the myth of night and morning the resemblance is 
sometimes so close as to confuse the interpretation of the 
two. Many legends which Max Mliller explains as 
myths of the victory of day over night are explained by 
Dr. Kuhn as storm-myths ; and the disagreement between 
two such powerful champions would be a standing 
reproach to what is rather prematurely called the science 
of comparative mythology, were it not easy to show that 
the difference is merely apparent and non-essential. It 
is the old story of the shield with two sides ; and a com- 
parison of the ideas fundamental to these myths will 
show that there is no valid ground for disagreement in 
the interpretation of them. The myths of schamir and 
the divining-rod, analyzed in a previous paper, explain 
the rending of the thunder-cloud and the procuring of 
water without especial reference to any struggle between 
opposing divinities. But in the myth of Hercules and 
Cacus, the fundamental idea is the victory of the solar 
god over the robber who steals the light. Now whether 
the robber carries off the light in the evening when Indra 
has gone to sleep, or boldly rears his black form against 
the sky during the daytime, causing darkness to spread 

* Bumouf, Bhlgavata-Purana, III. p. lxxxvi ; Br&il, op. cit. p. 98. 



120 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



over the earth, would make little difference to the framers 
of the myth. To a chicken a solar eclipse is the same 
thing as nightfall, and he goes to roost accordingly. 
Why, then, should the primitive thinker have made a 
distinction between the darkening of the sky caused by 
black clouds and that caused by the rotation of the 
earth? He had no more conception of the scientific 
explanation of these phenomena than the chicken has 
of the scientific explanation of an eclipse. For him it 
was enough to know that the solar radiance was stolen, 
in the one case as in the other, and to suspect that the 
same demon was to blame for both robberies. 

The Veda itself sustains this view. It is certain that 
the victory of Indra over Vritra is essentially the same 
as his victory over the Panis. Vritra, the storm-fiend, is 
himself called one of the Panis ; yet the latter are uni- 
formly represented as night-demons. They steal Indra's 
golden cattle and drive them by circuitous paths to a 
dark hiding-place near the eastern horizon. Indra sends 
the dawn-nymph, Sarama, to search for them, but as she 
comes within sight of the dark stable, the Panis try to 
coax her to stay with them : " Let us make thee our 
sister, do not go away again ; we will give thee part of 
the cows, darling." * According to the text of this 
hymn, she scorns their solicitations, but elsewhere the 
fickle dawn-nymph is said to coquet with the powers 
of darkness. She does not care for their cows, but will 
take a drink of milk, if they will be so good as to get it 
for her. Then she goes back and tells Indra that she 
cannot find the cows. He kicks her with his foot, and 
she runs back to the Panis, followed by the god, who 
smites them all with his unerring arrows and recovers 
the stolen light. From such a simple beginning as this 

* Max Miiller, Science of Language, II 484. 



LIGHT AND DARKNESS. 



121 



has been deduced the Greek myth of the faithlessness of 
Helen* 

These night-demons, the Panis, though not apparently- 
regarded with any strong feeling of moral condemnation, 
are nevertheless hated and dreaded as the authors of 
calamity. They not only steal the daylight, but they 
parch the earth and wither the fruits, and they slay 
vegetation during the winter months. As Ccecius, the 
" darkener," became ultimately changed into Cacus, the 
"evil one," so the name of Vritra, the "concealer," 
the most famous of the Panis, was gradually generalized 
until it came to mean " enemy," like the English word 
fiend, and began to be applied indiscriminately to any 
kind of evil spirit. In one place he is called Adeva, the 
"enemy of the gods," an epithet exactly equivalent to 
the Persian dev. 

In the Zendavesta the myth of Hercules and Cacus 
has given rise to a vast system of theology. The fiendish 
Panis are concentrated in Ahriman or Anro-mainyas, 
whose name signifies the " spirit of darkness," and who 
carries on a perpetual warfare against Ormuzd or Ahura- 
mazda, who is described by his ordinary surname, Spento- 
mainyas, as the " spirit of light." The ancient polytheism 
here gives place to a refined dualism, not very different 
from what in many Christian sects has passed current as 
monotheism. Ahriman is the archfiend, who struggles 
with Ormuzd, not for the possession of a herd of perisha- 
ble cattle, but for the dominion of the universe. Ormuzd 
creates the world pure and beautiful, but Ahriman comes 

* As Max Miiller observes, "apart from all mythological considera- 
tions, Saramd in Sanskrit is the same word as Helena in Greek." 
Op. cit. p. 490. The names correspond phonetically letter for letter, as 
Surya corresponds to Helios, SdramSyas to Hermeias, and Aharyu to 
Achilleus. Miiller has plausibly suggested that Paris similarly answers 
to the Panis. 

6 



122 



MYTHS AXD MYTH-MAKERS. 



after him and creates everything that is evil in it. He 
not only keeps the earth covered with darkness during 
half of the day, and withholds the rain and destroys the 
crops, but he is the author of all evil thoughts and the 
instigator of all wicked actions. Like his progenitor 
Vritra and his offspring Satan, he is represented under 
the form of a serpent ; and the destruction which ulti- 
mately awaits these demons is also in reserve for him. 
Eventually there is to be a day of reckoning, when Ahri- 
man will be bound in chains and rendered powerless, or 
when, according to another account, he will be converted 
to righteousness, as Burns hoped and Origen believed 
would be the case with Satan. 

This dualism of the ancient Persians has exerted a 
powerful influence upon the development of Christian 
theology. The very idea of an archfiend Satan, which 
Christianity received from Judaism, seems either to have 
been suggested by the Persian Ahriman, or at least to 
have derived its principal characteristics from that 
source. There is no evidence that the J ews, previous to 
the Babylonish captivity, possessed the conception of a 
Devil as the author of all evil. In the earlier books of 
the Old Testament Jehovah is represented as dispensing 
with his own hand the good and the evil, like the Zeus 
of the Iliad.* The story of the serpent in Eden — an 
Aryan story in every particular, which has crept into the 
Pentateuch — is not once alluded to in the Old Testa- 
ment; and the notion of Satan as the author of evil 
appears only in the later books, composed after the J ews 
had come into close contact with Persian ideas.')- In the 

* "I create evil," Isaiah xlv. 7 ; "Shall there be evil in the city, 
and the Lord hath not done it ?" Amos iii. 6; cf. Iliad, xxiv. 527, and 
contrast 2 Samuel xxiv. 1 with 1 Chronicles xxi. 1. 

+ Nor is there any ground for believing that the serpent in the Eden- 



LIGHT AND DARKNESS. 



123 



Book of Job, as Be* ville observes, Satan is " still a mem- 
ber of the celestial court, being one of the sons of the 
Elohim, but having as his special office the continual 
accusation of men, and having become so suspicious by 
his practice as public accuser, that he believes in the 
virtue of no one, and always presupposes interested 
motives for the purest manifestations of human piety." 
In this way the character of this angel became injured, 
and he became more and more an object of dread and 
dislike to men, until the later Jews ascribed to him all 
the attributes of Ahriman, and in this singularly altered 
shape he passed into Christian theology. Between the 
Satan of the Book of Job and the mediaeval Devil the 
metamorphosis is as great as that which degraded the 
stern Erinys, who brings evil deeds to light, into the 
demon-like Fury who torments wrong-doers in Tartarus ; 
and, making allowance for difference of circumstances, 
the process of degradation has been very nearly the same 
in the two cases. 

The mediaeval conception of the Devil is a grotesque 
compound of elements derived from all the systems of 
pagan mythology which Christianity superseded. He is 
primarily a rebellious angel, expelled from heaven along 
with his followers, like the giants who attempted to scale 
Olympos, and like the impious Efreets of Arabian legend 
who revolted against the beneficent rule of Solomon. As 
the serpent prince of the outer darkness, he retains the 
old characteristics of Vritra, Ahi, Typhon, and Echidna. 

myth is intended for Satan. The identification is entirely the work of 
modern dogmatic theology, and is due, naturally enough, to the habit, 
so common alike among theologians and laymen, of reasoning about the 
Bible as if it were a single book, and not a collection of writings of dif- 
ferent ages and of very different degrees of historic authenticity. In a 
future work, entitled "Aryana Yaedjo," I hope to examine, at con- 
siderable length, this interesting myth of the garden of Eden. 



124 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



As the black dog which appears behind the stove in Dr. 
Faust's study, he is the classic hell-hound Kerberos, the 
Vedic Qarvara. From the sylvan deity Pan he gets his 
goat-like body, his horns and cloven hoofs. Like the 
wind-god Orpheus, to whose music the trees bent their 
heads to listen, he is an unrivalled player on the bagpipes. 
Like those other wind-gods the psychopomp Hermes and( 
the wild huntsman Odin, he is the prince of the powers 
of the air : his flight through the midnight sky, attended 
by his troop of witches mounted on their brooms, which 
sometimes break the boughs and sweep the leaves from 
the trees, is the same as the furious chase of the Erlking 
Odin or the Burckar Vittikab. He is Dionysos, who 
causes red wine to flow from the dry wood, alike on the 
deck of the Tyrrhenian pirate-ship and in Auerbach's 
cellar at Leipzig. He is Wayland, the smith, a skilful 
worker in metals and a wonderful architect, like the classic 
fire-god Hephaistos or Vulcan ; and, like Hephaistos, he 
is lame from the effects of his fall from heaven. From 
the lightning-god Thor he obtains his red beard, his 
pitchfork, and his power over thunderbolts ; and, like 
that ancient deity, he is in the habit of beating his wife 
behind the door when the rain falls during sunshine. 
Finally, he takes a hint from Poseidon and from the 
swan-maidens, and appears as a water-imp or Mxy 
(whence probably his name of Old Nick), and as the 
Davy (deva) whose " locker " is situated at the bottom 
of the sea.* 

According to the Scotch divines of the seventeenth 
century, the Devil is a learned scholar and profound 
thinker. Having profited by six thousand years of in- 

* For further particulars see Cox, Mythology of the Aryan Nations, 
Vol. II. pp. 358, 366 ; to which I am indebted for several of the details 
here given. Compare "Welcker, Griechische Gotterlehre, I. 661, seq. 



LIGHT AND DARKNESS. 12$ 



tense study and meditation, he has all science, philoso- 
phy, and theology at his tongue's end ; and, as his skill 
has increased with age, he is far more than a match for 
mortals in cunning.* Such, however, is not the view 
taken by mediaeval mythology, which usually represents 
his stupidity as equalling his malignity. The victory of 
Hercules over Cacus is repeated in a hundred mediaeval 
legends in which the Devil is overreached and made a 
laughing-stock. The germ of this notion may be found 
in the blinding of Polyphemos by Odysseus, which is it- 
self a victory of the sun-hero over the night-demon, and 
which curiously reappears in a Middle-Age story narrated 
by Mr. Cox. " The Devil asks a man who is moulding 
buttons what he may be doing ; and when the man an- 
swers that he is moulding eyes, asks him further whether 
he can give him a pair of new eyes. He is told to come 
again another day ; and when he makes his appearance 
accordingly, the man tells him that the operation cannot 
be performed rightly unless he is first tightly bound with 
his back fastened to a bench. While he is thus pinioned 
he asks the man's name. The reply is Issi (' himself '). 
When the lead is melted, the Devil opens his eyes wide 
to receive the deadly stream. As soon as he is blinded, 
he starts up in agony, bearing away the bench to which 
he had been bound ; and when some workpeople in the 
fields ask him who had thus treated him, his answer is, 
■ Issi teggi ' (' Self did it '). With a laugh they bid him 
lie on the bed which he has made : ' selbst gethan, selbst 
habe.' The Devil died of his new eyes, and was never 
seen again." 

* Many amusing passages from Scotch theologians are cited in Buckle's 
History of Civilization, Vol. II. p. 368. The same belief is implied in 
the quaint monkish tale of "Celestinus and the Miller's Horse." See 
Tales from the Gesta Eomanorum, p. 134. 



126 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



In his attempts to obtain human souls the Devil is 
frequently foiled by the superior cunning of mortals. 
Once, he agreed to build a house for a peasant in ex- 
change for the peasant's soul ; but if the house were not 
finished before cockcrow, the contract was to be null and 
void. Just as the Devil was putting on the last tile the 
man imitated a cockcrow and waked up all the roosters 
in the neighbourhood, so that the fiend had his labour for 
his pains. A merchant of Louvain once sold himself to 
the Devil, who heaped upon him all manner of riches 
for seven years, and then came to get him. The mer- 
chant " took the Devil in a friendly manner by the hand 
and, as it was just evening, said, 'Wife, bring a light 
quickly for the gentleman.' ' That is not at all neces- 
sary,' said the Devil ; ' I am merely come to fetch you.' 
' Yes, yes, that I know very well,' said the merchant, 
* only just grant me the time till this little candle-end is 
burnt out, as I have a few letters to sign and to put on 
my coat' ' Very well,' said the Devil, ' but only till the 
candle is burnt out.' ' Good,' said the merchant, and 
going into the next room, ordered the maid-servant to 
place a large cask full of water close to a very deep pit 
that was dug in the garden. The men-servants also car- 
ried, each of them, a cask to the spot ; and when all was 
done, they were ordered each to take a shovel, and stand 
round the pit. The merchant then returned to the Devil, 
who seeing that not more than about an inch of candle 
remained, said, laughing, ' Now get yourself ready, it will 
soon be burnt out.' 1 That I see, and am content ; but I 
shall hold you to your word, and stay till it is burnt.' 
' Of course,' answered the Devil ; ' I stick to my word.' 
'It is dark in the next room,' continued the merchant, 
' but I must find the great book with clasps, so let me 
just take the light for one moment.' ' Certainly,' said the 



LIGHT AND DARKNESS. 



12/ 



Devil, ' but I '11 go with you.' He did so, and the mer- 
chant's trepidation was now on the increase. When in 
the next room he said on a sudden, ' Ah, now I know, 
the key is in the garden door.' And with these words he 
ran out with the light into the garden, and before the 
Devil could overtake him, threw it into the pit, and the 
men and the maids poured water upon it, and then filled 
up the hole with earth. Now came the Devil into the 
garden and asked, * Well, did you get the key ? and how 
is it with the candle ? where is it ? ' ' The candle ? ' said 
the merchant. ' Yes, the candle.' ' Ha, ha, ha ! it is not 
yet burnt out/ answered the merchant, laughing, 'and 
will not be burnt out for the next fifty years ; it lies 
there a hundred fathoms deep in the earth.' When the 
Devil heard this he screamed awfully, and went off with 
a most intolerable stench." * 

One day a fowler, who was a terrible bungler and 
could n't hit a bird at a dozen paces, sold his soul to the 
Devil in order to become a Freischutz. The fiend was to 
come for him in seven years, but must be always able to 
name the animal at which he was shooting, otherwise the 
compact was to be nullified. After that day the fowler 
never missed his aim, and never did a fowler command 
such wages. When the seven years were out the fowler 
told all these things to his wife, and the twain hit upon 
an expedient for cheating the Devil. The woman 
stripped herself, daubed her whole body with molasses, 
and rolled herself up in a feather-bed, cut open for this 
purpose. Then she hopped and skipped about the field 
where her husband stood parleying with Old Nick. 
i( There 's a shot for you, fire away," said the Devil. " Of 
course I '11 fire, but do you first tell me what kind of a 
bird it is ; else our agreement is cancelled, Old Boy." 

* Thorpe, Northern Mythology, Vol. II. p. 258. 



128 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



There was no help for it ; the Devil had to own himself 
nonplussed, and off he fled, with a whiff of brimstone 
which nearly suffocated the Freischiitz and his good 
woman.* 

In the legend of Gambrinus, the fiend is still more in- 
gloriously defeated. Gambrinus was a fiddler, who, be- 
ing jilted by his sweetheart, went out into the woods to 
hang himself. As he was sitting on the bough, with the 
cord about his neck, preparatory to taking the fatal 
plunge, suddenly a tall man in a green coat appeared 
before him, and offered his services. He might become 
as wealthy as he liked, and make his sweetheart burst 
with vexation at her own folly, but in thirty years he 
must give up his soul to Beelzebub. The bargain was 
struck, for Gambrinus thought thirty years a long time 
to enjoy one's self in, and perhaps the Devil might get 
him in any event ; as well be hung for a sheep as for a 
lamb. Aided by Satan, he invented chiming-bells and 
lager-beer, for both of which achievements his name is 
held in grateful remembrance by the Teuton. No sooner 
had the Holy Eoman Emperor quaffed a gallon or two of 
the new beverage than he made Gambrinus Duke of 
Brabant and Count of Flanders, and then it was the 
fiddler's turn to laugh at the discomfiture of his old 
sweetheart. Gambrinus kept clear of women, says the 
legend, and so lived in peace. For thirty years he sat 
beneath his belfry with the chimes, meditatively drink- 
ing beer with his nobles and burghers around him. Then 
Beelzebub sent Jocko, one of his imps, with orders to 

* Thorpe, Northern Mythology, Vol. II. p. 259. In the Norse story 
of " Not a Pin to choose between them," the old woman is in doubt as 
to her own identity, on waking up after the butcher has dipped her in a 
tar-barrel and rolled her on a heap of feathers ; and when Tray barks at 
her, her perplexity is as great as the Devil's when fooled by the Frei« 
ichutz. See Dasent, Norse Tales, p. 199. 



LIGHT AND DARKNESS. 



129 



bring back Gambrirms before midnight. But Jocko was, 
like Swiveller's Marchioness, ignorant of the taste of beer, 
never having drunk of it even in a sip, and the Flemish 
schoppen were too much for him. He fell into a drunken 
sleep, and did not wake up until noon next day, at which 
he was so mortified that he had not the face to go back 
to hell at all. So Gambrinus lived on tranquilly for a 
century or two, and drank so much beer that he turned 
into a beer-barrel.* 

The character of gullibility attributed to the Devil in 
these legends is probably derived from the Trolls, or 
" night-folk," of Northern mythology. In most respects 
the Trolls resemble the Teutonic elves and fairies, and 
the Jinn or Efreets of the Arabian Nights ; but their 
pedigree is less honourable. The fairies, or "White 
Ladies," were not originally spirits of darkness, but were 
nearly akin to the swan-maidens, dawn-nymphs, and 
dryads, and though their wrath was to be dreaded, they 
were not malignant by nature. Christianity, having no 
place for such beings, degraded them into something like 
imps ; the most charitable theory being that they were 
angels who had remained neutral during Satan's rebel- 
lion, in punishment for which Michael expelled them 
from heaven, but has left their ultimate fate unannounced 
until the day of judgment. The Jinn appear to have been 
similarly degraded on the rise of Mohammedanism. But 
the Trolls were always imps of darkness. They are de- 
scended from the Jotuns, or Frost-Giants of Northern 
paganism, and they correspond to the Panis, or night- 
demons of the Veda. In many Norse tales they are said 
to burst when they see the risen sun.-f- They eat human 
flesh, are ignorant of the simplest arts, and live in the 



* See Deulin, Coxites d'un Buveur de Biere, pp. 3 - 29. 

t Dasent, Popular Tales from the Norse, No. III. and No. XLII. 

6* 1 



130 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



deepest recesses of the forest or in caverns on the hill 
side, where the sunlight never penetrates. Some of thes 
characteristics may very likely have been suggested b 
reminiscences of the primeval Lapps, from whom the 
Aryan invaders wrested the dominion of Europe.* In 
some legends the Trolls are represented as an ancient 
race of beings now superseded by the human race. 
" ' What sort of an earth-worm is this ? ' said one Giant 
to another, when they met a man as they walked. 
* These are the earth-worms that will one day eat us up, 
brother,' answered the other ; and soon both Giants left 
that part of Germany." " ' See what pretty playthings, 
mother ! ' cries the Giant's daughter, as she unties her 
apron, and shows her a plough, and horses, and a peasant. 
' Back with them this instant,' cries the mother in wrath, 
1 and put them down as carefully as you can, for these 
playthings can do our race great harm, and when these 
come we must budge.'" Very naturally the primitive 
Teuton, possessing already the conception of night-de- 
mons, would apply it to these men of the woods whom even 
to this day his uneducated descendants believe to be sor- 
cerers, able to turn men into wolves. But whatever con- 
tributions historical fact may have added to his character, 
the Troll is originally a creation of mythology, like Poly- 
phemos, whom he resembles in his uncouth person, his 
cannibal appetite, and his lack of wit. His ready gulli- 
bility is shown in the story of " Boots who ate a Match 
with the Troll." Boots, the brother of Cinderella, and 
the counterpart alike of Jack the Giant-killer, and of 
Odysseus, is the youngest of three brothers who go into 
a forest to cut wood. The Troll appears and threatens to 
kill any one who dares to meddle with his timber. The 

* See Dasent's Introduction, p. cxxxix ; Campbell, Tales of the West 
Highlands, Vol. IV. p. 344 ; and Williams, Indian Epic Poetry, p. 10. 



LIGHT AND DARKNESS. 



131 



elder brothers flee, but Boots puts on a bold face. He 
pulled a cheese out of his scrip and squeezed it till the 
whey began to spurt out. " Hold your tongue, you dirty 
Troll/' said he, " or I '11 squeeze you as I squeeze this 
stone." So the Troll grew timid and begged to be spared * 
and Boots let him off on condition that he would hew all 
day with him. They worked till nightfall, and the Troll's 
giant strength accomplished wonders. Then Boots went 
home with the Troll, having arranged that he should get 
the water while his host made the fire. When they 
reached the hut there were two enormous iron pails, so 
heavy that none but a Troll could lift them, but Boots 
was not to be frightened. " Bah ! " said he. " Do you 
suppose I am going to get water in those paltry hand- 
basins ? Hold on till I go and get the spring itself ! " 
" dear ! " said the Troll, " I 'd rather not ; do you make 
the fire, and 1 11 get the water." Then when the soup 
was made, Boots challenged his new friend to an eating- 
match ; and tying his scrip in front of him, proceeded to 
pour soup into it by the ladleful. By and by the giant 
threw down his spoon in despair, and owned himself con- 
quered. " No, no ! don't give it up yet," said Boots, "just 
cut a hole in your stomach like this, and you can eat for- 
ever." And suiting the action to the words, he ripped 
open his scrip. So the silly Troll cut himself open and 
died, and Boots carried off all his gold and silver. 

Once there was a Troll whose name was Wind-and- 

* "A Leopard was returning home from hunting on one occasion, 
when he lighted on the kraal of a Ram. Now the Leopard had never 
seen a Ram before, and accordingly, approaching submissively, he said, 
' Good day, friend ! what may your name be ? ' The other, in his gruff 
voice, and striking his breast with his forefoot, said, 'lama Ram ; who 
are you?' 'A Leopard,' answered the other, more dead than alive ; 
and then, taking leave of the Ram, he ran home as fast as he could." 
Bleek, Hottentot Fables, p. 24. 



132 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



Weather, and Saint Olaf hired him to build a church. 
If the church were completed within a certain specified 
time, the Troll was to get possession of Saint Olaf. The 
saint then planned such a stupendous edifice that he 
thought the giant would be forever building it ; but the 
work went on briskly, and at the appointed day nothing 
remained but to finish the point of the spire. In his 
consternation Olaf rushed about until he passed by the 
Troll's den, when he heard the giantess telling her chil- 
dren that their father, Wind-and- Weather, was finishing 
his church, and would be home to-morrow with Saint 
Olaf. So the saint ran back to the church and bawled 
out, " Hold on, Wind-and- Weather, your spire is crook- 
ed ! " Then the giant tumbled down from the roof and 
broke into a thousand pieces. As in the cases of the 
Mara and the werewolf, the enchantment was at an end 
as soon as the enchanter was called by name. 

These Trolls, like the Arabian Efreets, had an ugly 
habit of carrying off beautiful princesses. This is strictly 
in keeping with their character as night-demons, or Panis. 
In the stories of Punchkin and the Heartless Giant, the 
night-demon carries off the dawn-maiden after having 
turned into stone her solar brethren. But Boots, or In- 
dra, in search of his kinsfolk, by and by arrives at the 
Troll's castle, and then the dawn-nymph, true to her 
fickle character, cajoles the Giant and enables Boots to 
destroy him. In the famous myth which serves as the 
basis for the Yolsunga Saga and the Mbelungenlied, the 
dragon Pamir steals the Valkyrie Brynhild and keeps 
her shut up in a castle on the Glistening Heath, until 
some champion shall be found powerful enough to rescue 
her. The castle is as hard to enter as that of the Sleep- 
ing Beauty ; but Sigurd, the Northern Achilleus, riding 
on his deathless horse, and wielding his resistless sword 



LIGHT AND DARKNESS. 



133 



Gram, forces his way in, slays Fafnir, and recovers the 
Valkyrie. 

In the preceding paper the Valkyries were shown to 
belong to the class of cloud-maidens ; and between the 
tale of Sigurd and that of Hercules and Cacus there is 
no difference, save that the bright sunlit clouds which are 
represented in the one as cows are in the other repre- 
sented as maidens. In the myth of the Argonauts they 
reappear as the Golden Fleece, carried to the far east by 
Phrixos and Helle, who are themselves Mblungs, or 
" Children of the Mist " (Nephele), and there guarded by 
a dragon. In all these myths a treasure is stolen by a 
fiend of darkness, and recovered by a hero of light, who 
slays the demon. And — remembering what Scribe said 
about the fewness of dramatic types — I believe we are 
warranted in asserting that all the stories of lovely 
women held in bondage by monsters, and rescued by 
heroes who perform wonderful tasks, such as Don Quixote 
burned to achieve, are derived ultimately from solar 
myths, like the myth of Sigurd and Brynhild. I do not 
mean to say that the story-tellers who beguiled their 
time in stringing together the incidents which make up 
these legends were conscious of their solar character. 
They did not go to work, with malice prepense, to weave 
allegories and apologues. The Greeks who first told the 
story of Perseus and Andromeda, the Arabians who de- 
vised the tale of Codadad and his brethren, the Flemings 
who listened over their beer-mugs to the adventures of 
Culotte-Verte, were not thinking of sun-gods or dawn- 
maidens, or night-demons ; and no theory of mythology 
can be sound which implies such an extravagance. Most 
of these stories have lived on the lips of the common 
people; and illiterate persons are not in the habit of 
allegorizing in the style of mediaeval monks or rabbinical 



134 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



commentators. But what has been amply demonstrated 
is, that the sun and the clouds, the light and the dark- 
ness, were once supposed to be actuated by wills analo- 
gous to the human will ; that they were personified and 
worshipped or propitiated by sacrifice ; and that their 
doings were described in language which applied so well 
to the deeds of human or quasi-human beings that in 
course of time its primitive purport faded from recollec- 
tion. No competent scholar now doubts that the myths 
of the Yeda and the Edda originated in this way, for 
philology itself shows that the names employed in them 
are the names of the great phenomena of nature. And 
when once a few striking stories had thus arisen, — when 
once it had been told how Indra smote the Panis, and 
how Sigurd rescued Brynhild, and how Odysseus blinded 
the Kyklops, — then certain mythic or dramatic types 
had been called into existence ; and to these types, pre- 
served in the popular imagination, future stories would 
inevitably conform. We need, therefore, have no hesita- 
tion in admitting a common origin for the vanquished 
Panis and the outwitted Troll or Devil ; we may securely 
compare the legends of St. George and Jack the Giant- 
killer with the myth of Indra slaying Vritra ; we may 
see in the invincible Sigurd the prototype of many a 
doughty knight-errant of romance; and we may learn 
anew the lesson, taught with fresh emphasis by modern 
scholarship, that in the deepest sense there is nothing 
new under the sun. 

I am the more explicit on this point, because it seems 
to me that the unguarded language of many students of 
mythology is liable to give rise to misapprehensions, and 
to discredit both the method which they employ and the 
results which they have obtained. If we were to give 
full weight to the statements which are sometimes made, 



LIGHT AND DARKNESS. 



135 



we should perforce believe that primitive men had noth- 
ing to do bat to ponder about the sun and the clouds, and 
to worry themselves over the disappearance of daylight. 
But there is nothing in the scientific interpretation of 
myths which obliges us to go any such length. I do not 
suppose that any ancient Aryan, possessed of good di- 
gestive powers and endowed with sound common-sense, 
ever lay awake half the night wondering whether the 
sun would come back again.* The child and the savage 
believe of necessity that the future will resemble the 
past, and it is only philosophy which raises doubts on 
the subject.-)- The predominance of solar legends in 
most systems of mythology is not due to the lack of 
" that Titanic assurance with which we say, the sun must 
rise " ; \ nor again to the fact that the phenomena of day 
and night are the most striking phenomena in nature. 
Eclipses and earthquakes and floods are phenomena of 
the most terrible and astounding kind, and they have 
all generated myths ; yet their contributions to folk-lore 
are scanty compared with those furnished by the strife 
between the day-god and his enemies. The sun-myths 
have been so prolific because the dramatic types to which 
they have given rise are of surpassing human interest. 
The dragon who swallows the sun is no doubt a fearful 
personage ; but the hero who toils for others, who slays 
hydra-headed monsters, and dries the tears of fair-haired 

* I agree, most heartily, with Mr. Mahaffy's remarks, Prolegomena 
to Ancient History, p. 69. 

+ Sir George Grey once told some Australian natives about the coun- 
tries within the arctic circle where during part of the year the sun never 
sets. " Their astonishment now knew no bounds. ' Ah ! that must be 
another sun, not the same as the one we see here,' said an old man ; and 
in spite of all my arguments to the contrary, the others adopted this 
opinion." Grey's Journals, I. 293, cited in Tylor, Early History of 
Mankind, p. 301. 

± Max Muller, Chips, II. 96. 



136 MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 

damsels, and achieves success in spite of incredible obsta- 
cles, is a being with whom we can all sympathize, and of 
whom we never weary of hearing. 

With many of these legends which present the myth 
of light and darkness in its most attractive form, the 
reader is already acquainted, and it is needless to retail 
stories which have been told over and over again in books 
which every one is presumed to have read. I will con- 
tent myself with a weird Irish legend, narrated by Mr. 
Patrick Kennedy,* in which we here and there catch 
glimpses of the primitive mythical symbols, as fragments 
of gold are seen gleaming through the crystal of quartz. 

Long before the Danes ever came to Ireland, there died 
at Muskerry a Sculloge, or country farmer, who by dint 
of hard work and close economy had amassed enormous 
wealth. His only son did not resemble him. When the 
young Sculloge looked about the house, the day after his 
father's death, and saw the big chests full of gold and 
silver, and the cupboards shining with piles of sovereigns, 
and the old stockings stuffed with large and small coin, 
he said to himself, u Bedad, how shall I ever be able to 
spend the likes 0' that ! " And so he drank, and gam- 
bled, and wasted his time in hunting and horse-racing, 
until after a while he found the chests empty and the 
cupboards poverty-stricken, and the stockings lean and 
penniless. Then he mortgaged his farm-house and gam- 
bled away all the money he got for it, and then he be- 
thought him that a few hundred pounds might be raised 
on his mill. But when he went to look at it, he found 
" the dam broken, and scarcely a thimbleful of water in 
the mill-race, and the wheel rotten, and the thatch of the 
house all gone, and the upper millstone lying flat on the 
lower one, and a coat of dust and mould over every- 



* Fictions of the Irish Celts, pp. 255-270. 



LIGHT AND DARKNESS. 



137 



thing." So lie made up his mind to borrow a horse and 
take one more hunt to-morrow and then reform his hab- 
its. 

As he was returning late in the evening from this fare- 
well hunt, passing through a lonely glen he came upon 
an old man playing backgammon, betting on his left hand 
against his right, and crying and cursing because the 
right would win. " Come and bet with me," said he to 
Sculloge. " Faith, I have but a sixpence in the world," 
was the reply ; " but, if you like, I 'H wager that on the 
right." " Done," said the old man> who was a Druid ; 
* if you win I '11 give you a hundred guineas." So the 
game was played, and the old man, whose right hand was 
always the winner, paid over the guineas and told Scul- 
loge to go to the Devil with them. 

Instead of following this bit of advice, however, the 
young farmer went home and began to pay his debts, and 
next week he went to the glen and won another game, 
and made the Druid rebuild his mill. So Sculloge be- 
came prosperous again, and by and by he tried his luck a 
third time, and won a game played for a beautiful wife. 
The Druid sent her to his house the next morning before 
he was out of bed, and his servants came knocking at the 
door and crying, " Wake up ! wake up ! Master Scul- 
loge, there 's a young lady here to see you." " Bedad, it 's 
the vanithee * herself," said Sculloge ; and getting up in 
a hurry, he spent three quarters of an hour in dressing 
himself. At last he Went down stairs, and there on the 
sofa was the prettiest lady ever seen in Ireland ! Natu- 
rally, Sculloge's heart beat fast and his voice trembled, as 
he begged the lady's pardon for this Druidic style of 
wooing, and besought her not to feel obliged to stay with 
him unless she really liked him. But the young lady, 

* A corruption of Gaelic bhan a teaigh, " lady of the house." 



138 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



who was a king's daughter from a far country, was won- 
drously charmed with the handsome farmer, and so weD 
did they get along that the priest was sent for without 
further delay, and they were married before sundown. 
Sabina was the vanithee's name ; and she warned her 
husband to have no more dealings with Lassa Buaicht, 
the old man of the glen. So for a while all went happily, 
and the Druidic bride was as good as she was beautiful. 
But by and by Sculloge began to think he was not earn- 
ing money fast enough. He could not bear to see his 
wife's white hands soiled with work> and thought it 
would be a fine thing if he could only afford to keep a 
few more servants, and drive about with Sabina in an 
elegant carriage, and see her clothed in silk and adorned 
with jewels. 

" I will play one more game and set the stakes high," 
said Sculloge to himself one evening, as he sat pondering 
over these things ; and so, without consulting Sabina, he 
stole away to the glen, and played a game for ten thou- 
sand guineas. But the evil Druid was now ready to 
pounce on his prey, and he did not play as of old. Scul- 
loge broke into a cold sweat with agony and terror as he 
saw the left hand win ! Then the face of Lassa Buaicht 
grew dark and stern, and he laid on Sculloge the curse 
which is laid upon the solar hero in misfortune, that he 
should never sleep twice under the same roof, or ascend 
the couch of the dawn-nymph, his wife, until he should 
have procured and brought to him the sword of light. 
When Sculloge reached home, more dead than alive, he 
saw that his wife knew all. Bitterly they wept together, 
but she told him that with courage all might be set right. 
She gave him a Druidic horse, which bore him swiftly 
over land and sea, like the enchanted steed of the Arabian 
Nights, until he reached the castle of his wife's father, 



LIGHT AND DARKNESS. 



139 



who, as Sculloge now learned, was a good Druid, the 
brother of the evil Lassa Buaicht. This good Druid told 
him that the sword of light was kept by a third brother, 
the powerful magician, Fiach O'Duda, who dwelt in an 
enchanted castle, which many brave heroes had tried to 
enter, but the dark sorcerer had slain them all. Three 
high walls surrounded the castle, and many had scaled 
the first of these, but none had ever returned alive. But 
Sculloge was not to be daunted, and, taking from his 
father-in-law a black steed, he set out for the fortress of 
Fiach O'Duda. Over the first high wall nimbly leaped 
the magic horse, and Sculloge called aloud on the Druid 
to come out and surrender his sword. Then came out a 
tall, dark man, with coal-black eyes and hair and melan- 
choly visage, and made a furious sweep at Sculloge with 
the flaming blade. But the Druidic beast sprang back 
over the wall in the twinkling of an eye and rescued his 
rider, leaving, however, his tail behind in the court-yard. 
Then Sculloge returned in triumph to his father-in-law's 
palace, and the night was spent in feasting and revelry. 

Next day Sculloge rode out on a white horse, and when 
he got to Fiach's castle, he saw the first wall lying in 
rubbish. He leaped the second, and the same scene 
occurred as the day before, save that the horse escaped 
unharmed. 

The third day Sculloge went out on foot, with a harp 
like that of Orpheus in his hand, and as he swept its 
strings the grass bent to listen and the trees bowed their 
heads. The castle walls all lay in ruins, and Sculloge 
made his way unhindered to the upper room, where Fiach 
lay in Druidic slumber, lulled by the harp. He seized 
the sword of light, which was hung by the chimney 
sheathed in a dark scabbard, and making the best of his 
way back to the good king's palace, mounted his wife's 



140 



MYTHS AXD MYTH-MAKERS. 



steed, and scoured over land and sea until he found him- 
self in the gloomy glen where Lassa Buaicht was still dy- 
ing and cursing and betting on his left hand against his 
right. 

" Here, treacherous fiend, take your sword of light ! " 
shouted Sculloge in tones of thunder ; and as he drew it 
from its sheath the whole valley was lighted up as with 
the morning sun, and next moment the head of the 
wretched Druid was lying at his feet, and his sweet 
wife, who had come to meet him, was laughing and 
crying in his arms. 

November, 1870. 



MYTHS OF THE BARBARIC WORLD. 141 



V. 

MYTHS OF THE BAEBAEIC WOELD. 

THE theory of mythology set forth in the four preced- 
ing papers, and illustrated by the examination of 
numerous myths relating to the lightning, the storm- 
wind, the clouds, and the sunlight, was originally framed 
with reference solely to the mythic and legendary lore of 
the Aryan world. The phonetic identity of the names 
of many Western gods and heroes with the names of 
those Vedic divinities which are obviously the personifi- 
cations of natural phenomena, suggested the theory which 
philosophical considerations had already foreshadowed in 
the works of Hume and Comte, and which the exhaustive 
analysis of Greek, Hindu, Keltic, and Teutonic legends 
has amply confirmed. Let us now, before proceeding to 
the consideration of barbaric folk-lore, briefly recapitulate 
the results obtained by modern scholarship working strict- 
ly within the limits of the Aryan domain. 

In the first place, it has been proved once for all that 
the languages spoken by the Hindus, Persians, Greeks, 
Eomans, Kelts, Slaves, and Teutons are all descended 
from a single ancestral language, the Old Aryan, in the 
same sense that French, Italian, and Spanish are de- 
scended from the Latin. And from this undisputed fact- 
it is an inevitable inference that these various races con- 
tain, along with other elements, a race-element in com- 
mon, due to their Aryan pedigree. That the Indo-Euro- 
pean races are wholly Aryan is very improbable, for in 
every case the countries overrun by them were occupied 



142 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



by inferior races, whose blood must have mingled in vary- 
ing degrees with that of their conquerors ; but that every 
Indo-European people is in great part descended from a 
common Aryan stock is not open to question. 

In the second place, along with a common fund of 
moral and religious ideas and of legal and ceremonial ob- 
servances, we find these kindred peoples possessed of a 
common fund of myths, superstitions, proverbs, popular 
poetry, and household legends. The Hindu mother 
amuses her child with fairy-tales which often correspond, 
even in minor incidents, with stories in Scottish or 
Scandinavian nurseries ; and she tells them in words 
which are phonetically akin to words in Swedish and 
Gaelic. No doubt many of these stories might have 
been devised in a dozen different places independently 
of each other ; and no doubt many of them have been 
transmitted laterally from one people to another ; but a 
careful examination shows that such cannot have been 
the case with the great majority of legends and beliefs. 
The agreement between two such stories, for instance, as 
those of Faithful J ohn and Eama and Luxman is so close 
as to make it incredible that they should have been in- 
dependently fabricated, while the points of difference are 
so important as to make it extremely improbable that the 
one was ever copied from the other. Besides which, the 
essential identity of such myths as those of Sigurd and 
Theseus, or of Helena and Sarama, carries us back histor- 
ically to a time when the scattered Indo-European tribes 
had not yet begun to hold commercial and intellectual 
intercourse with each other, and consequently could not 
have interchanged their epic materials or their household 
stories. We are therefore driven to the conclusion — 
which, startling as it may seem, is after all the most 
natural and plausible one that can be stated — that the 



MYTHS OF THE BARBARIC WORLD. 1 43 



Aryan nations, which have inherited from a common an- 
cestral stock their languages and their customs, have in- 
herited also from the same common original their fireside 
legends. They have preserved Cinderella and Pimchkin 
just as they have preserved the words for father and 
mother, ten and twenty ; and the former case, though; 
more imposing to the imagination, is scientifically no 
less intelligible than the latter. 

Thirdly, it has been shown that these venerable tales 
may be grouped in a few pretty well defined classes ; and 
that the archetypal myth of each class — the primitive 
story in conformity to which countless subsequent tales 
have been generated — was originally a mere description 
of physical phenomena, couched in the poetic diction of 
an age when everything was personified, because all nat- 
ural phenomena were supposed to be due to the direct 
workings of a volition like that of which men were con- 
scious within themselves. Thus we are led to the strik- 
ing conclusion that mythology has had a common root, 
both with science and with religious philosophy. The 
myth of Indra conquering Vritra was one of the theo- 
rems of primitive Aryan science ; it was a provisional 
explanation of the thunder-storm, satisfactory enough 
until extended observation and reflection supplied a bet- 
ter one. It also contained the germs of a theology ; for 
the life-giving solar light furnished an important part of 
the primeval conception of deity. And finally, it became 
the fruitful parent of countless myths, whether embod- 
ied in the stately epics of Homer and the bards of the 
Nibelungenlied, or in the humbler legends of St. George 
and William Tell and the ubiquitous Boots. 

Such is the theory which was suggested half a century 
ago by the researches of Jacob Grimm, and which, so far 
as concerns the mythology of the Aryan race, is now 



144 



MYTHS AXD MYTH-MAKERS. 



victorious along the whole line. It remains for us to 
test the universality of the general principles upon which 
it is founded, by a brief analysis of sundry legends and 
superstitions of the barbaric world. Since the fetichistic 
habit of explaining the outward phenomena" of nature 
after the analogy of the inward phenomena of conscious 
intelligence is not a habit peculiar to our Aryan ances- 
tors, but is, as psychology shows, the inevitable result of 
the conditions under which uncivilized thinking pro- 
ceeds, we may expect to find the barbaric mind personi- 
fying the powers of nature and making myths about their 
operations the whole world over. And we need not be 
surprised if we find in the resulting mythologic structures 
a strong resemblance to the familiar creations of the 
Aryan intelligence. In point of fact, we shall often be 
called upon to note such resemblance ; and it accordingly 
behooves us at the outset to inquire how far a similarity 
between mythical tales shall be taken as evidence of a 
common traditional origin, and how far it may be inter- 
preted as due merely to the similar workings of the un- 
trained intelligence in all ages and countries. 

Analogies drawn from the comparison of languages 
will here be of service to us, if used discreetly ; other- 
wise they are likely to bewilder far more than to en- 
lighten us. A theorem which Max Muller has laid down 
for our guidance in this kind of investigation furnishes 
us with an excellent example of the tricks which a 
superficial analogy may play even with the trained 
scholar, when temporarily off his guard. Actuated by a 
praiseworthy desire to raise the study of myths to some- 
thing like the high level of scientific accuracy already 
attained by the study of words, Max Muller endeavours 
to introduce one of the most useful canons of philology 
into a department of inquiry where its introduction 



MYTHS OF THE BARBARIC WORLD. 



145 



could only work the most hopeless confusion. One of 
the earliest lessons to be learned by the scientific stu- 
dent of linguistics is the uselessness of comparing to- 
gether directly the words contained in derivative lan- 
guages. For example, you might set the English twelve 
side by side with the Latin duodecim, and then stare at 
the two words to all eternity without any hope of reach- 
ing a conclusion, good or bad, about either of them : 
least of all would you suspect that they are descended 
from the same radical. But if you take each word by 
itself and trace it back to its primitive shape, explaining 
every change of every letter as you go, you will at last 
reach the old Aryan dvadakan, which is the parent of 
both these strangely metamorphosed words.* Nor will it 
do, on the other hand, to trust to verbal similarity with- 
out a historical inquiry into the origin of such similarity. 
Even in the same language two words of quite different 
origin may get their corners rubbed off till they look as 
like one another as two pebbles. The French words souris, 
a " mouse," and souris, a " smile," are spelled exactly 
alike ; but the one comes from Latin sorex and the other 
from Latin subridere. 

Now Max Muller tells us that this principle, which is 
indispensable in the study of words, is equally indispen- 
sable in the study of myths.-f* That is, you must not 
rashly pronounce the Norse story of the Heartless Giant 
identical with the Hindu story of Punchkin, although the 
two correspond in every essential incident. In both 
legends a magician turns several members of the same 
family into stone ; the youngest member of the family 
comes to the rescue, and on the way saves the lives of 

* For the analysis of twelve, see my essay on " The Genesis of Lan« 
guage," North American Keview, October 1869, p. 320. 
+ Chips from a German Workshop, Vol. II. p. 246. 

7 J 



146 MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 

sundry grateful beasts ; arrived at the magician's castle, 
lie finds a captive princess ready to accept his love and 
to play the part of Delilah to the enchanter. In both 
stories the enchanter's life depends on the integrity of 
something which is elaborately hidden in a far-distant 
island, but which the fortunate youth, instructed by the 
artful princess and assisted by his menagerie of grateful 
beasts, succeeds in obtaining. In both stories the youth 
uses his advantage to free all his friends from their en- 
chantment, and then proceeds to destroy the villain who 
wrought all this wickedness. Yet, in spite of this agree- 
ment, Max Muller, if I understand him aright, would not 
have us infer the identity of the two stories until we have 
taken each one separately and ascertained its primitive 
mythical significance. Otherwise, for aught we can tell, 
the resemblance may be purely accidental, like that of 
the French words for " mouse " and " smile." 

A little reflection, however, will relieve us from this 
perplexity, and assure us that the alleged analogy be- 
tween the comparison of words and the comparison of 
stories is utterly superficial. The transformations of 
words — which are often astounding enough — depend 
upon a few well-established physiological principles of 
utterance ; and since philology has learned to rely upon 
these principles, it has become nearly as sure in its 
methods and results as one of the so-called " exact 
sciences.'' Folly enough is doubtless committed within 
its precincts by writers who venture there without the 
laborious preparation which this science, more than al- 
most any other, demands. But the proceedings of the 
trained philologist are no more arbitrary than those of 
the trained astronomer. And though the former may 
seem to be straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel 
when he coolly tells you that violin and fiddle are the 



MYTHS OF THE BARBARIC WORLD. 



147 



same word, while English care and Latin cur a have 
nothing to do with each other, he is nevertheless no 
more indulging in guess-work than the astronomer who 
confesses his ignorance as to the habitability of Venus 
while asserting his knowledge of the existence of hydro- 
gen in the atmosphere of Sirius. To cite one example 
out of a hundred, every philologist knows that s may 
become r, and that the broad a-sound may dwindle into 
the closer o-sound ; but when you adduce some plausible 
etymology based on the assumption that r has changed 
into s, or into a, apart from the demonstrable influence 
of some adjacent letter, the philologist will shake his 
head. 

Now in the study of stories there are no such simple 
rules all cut and dried for us to go by. There is no uni- 
form psychological principle which determines that the 
three-headed snake in one story shall become a three- 
headed man in the next. There is no Grimm's Law in 
mythology which decides that a Hindu magician shall 
always correspond to a Norwegian Troll or a Keltic 
Druid. The laws of association of ideas are not so 
simple in application as the laws of utterance. In short, 
the study of myths, though it can be made sufficiently 
scientific in its methods and results, does not constitute 
a science by itself, like philology. It stands on a footing 
similar to that occupied by physical geography, or what 
the Germans call " earth-knowledge." No one denies that 
all the changes going on over the earth's surface conform 
to physical laws ; but then no one pretends that there is 
any single proximate principle which governs all the 
phenomena of rain-fall, of soil-crumbling, of magnetic 
variation, and of the distribution of plants and animals. 
All these things are explained by principles obtained from 
the various sciences of physics, chemistry, geology, and 



148 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



physiology. And in just the same way the development 
and distribution of stories is explained by the help of 
divers resources contributed by philology, psychology, 
and history. There is therefore no real analogy between 
the cases cited by Max Muller. Two unrelated words 
may be ground into exactly the same shape, just as •: 
pebble from the North Sea may be undistinguishabl 
from another pebble on the beach of the Adriatic ; but 
two stories like those of Punchkin and the Hearties 
Giant are no more likely to arise independently of eac 
other than two coral reefs on opposite sides of the glob 
are likely to develop into exactly similar islands. 

Shall we then say boldly, that close similarity betwee 
legends is proof of kinship, and go our way without fur 
ther misgivings ? Unfortunately we cannot dispose of 
the matter in quite so summary a fashion ; for it remains 
to decide what kind and degree of similarity shall be con- 
sidered satisfactory evidence of kinship. And it is just 
here that doctors may disagree. Here is the point at 
which our " science " betrays its weakness as compared 
with the sister study of philology. Before we can de- 
cide with confidence in any case, a great mass of evi- 
dence must be brought into court. So long as we re- 
mained on Aryan ground, all went smoothly enough, 
because all the external evidence was in our favour. We 
knew at the outset, that the Aryans inherit a common 
language and a common civilization, and therefore we 
found no difficulty in accepting the conclusion that they 
have inherited, among other things, a common stock of 
legends. In the barbaric world it is quite otherwise. 
Philology does not pronounce in favour of a common 
origin for all barbaric culture, such as it is. The notion 
of a single primitive language, standing in the same rela- 
tion to all existing dialects as the relation of old Aryan 



MYTHS OF THE BARBARIC WORLD. 149 



to Latin and English, or that of old Semitic to Hebrew 
and Arabic, was a notion suited only to the infancy of 
linguistic science. As the case now stands, it is certain 
that all the languages actually existing cannot be referred 
to a common ancestor, and it is altogether probable that 
there never was any such common ancestor. I am not 
now referring to the question of the unity of the human 
race. That question lies entirely outside the sphere of 
philology. The science of language has nothing to do 
with skulls or complexions, and no comparison of words 
can tell us whether the black men are brethren of the 
white men, or whether yellow and red men have a com- 
mon pedigree : these questions belong to comparative 
physiology. But the science of language can and does 
tell us that a certain amount of civilization is requisite 
for the production of a language sufficiently durable and 
wide-spread to give birth to numerous mutually resem- 
bling offspring. Barbaric languages are neither wide- 
spread nor durable. Among savages each little group of 
families has its own dialect, and coins its own expressions 
at pleasure ; and in the course of two or three gener- 
ations a dialect gets so strangely altered as virtually to 
lose its identity. Even numerals and personal pronouns, 
which the Aryan has preserved for fifty centuries, get 
lost every few years in Polynesia. Since the time of 
Captain Cook the Tahitian language has thrown away 
five out of its ten simple numerals, and replaced them 
by brand-new ones ; and on the Amazon you may acquire 
a fluent command of some Indian dialect, and then, com- 
ing back after twenty years, find yourself worse off than 
Eip Van Winkle, and your learning all antiquated and 
useless. How absurd, therefore, to suppose that primeval 
savages originated a language which has held its own 
like the old Aryan, and become the prolific mother of the 



f 50 MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 

three or four thousand dialects now in existence ! Before 
a durable language can arise, there must be an aggrega- 
tion of numerous tribes into a people, so that there may 
be need of communication on a large scale, and so that 
tradition may be strengthened. Wherever mankind have 
associated in nations, permanent languages have arisen, 
and their derivative dialects bear the conspicuous marks 
of kinship ; but where mankind have remained in their 
primitive savage isolation, their languages have remained 
sporadic and transitory, incapable of organic develop- 
ment, and showing no traces of a kinship which never 
existed. 

The bearing of these considerations upon the origin 
and diffusion of barbaric myths is obvious. The devel- 
opment of a common stock of legends is, of course, im- 
possible, save where there is a common language; and 
thus philology pronounces against the kinship of bar- 
baric myths with each other and with similar myths of 
the Aryan and Semitic worlds. Similar stories told in 
Greece and Norway are likely to have a common pedi- 
gree, because the persons who have preserved them in 
recollection speak a common language and have inherited 
the same civilization. But similar stories told in Lab- 
rador and South Africa are not likely to be genealogi- 
cally related, because it is altogether probable that the 
Esquimaux and the Zulu had acquired their present race 
characteristics before either of them possessed a language 
or a culture sufficient for the production of myths. Ac- 
cording to the nature and extent of the similarity, it 
must be decided whether such stories have been carried 
about from one part of the world to another, or have 
\>een independently originated in many different places. 

Here the methods of philology suggest a rule which 
will often be found useful. In comparing the vocabula* 



MYTHS OF TEE BARBARIC WORLD. 151 



ries of different languages, those words which directly 
imitate natural sounds — such as whiz, crash, crackle — 
are not admitted as evidence of kinship between the 
languages in which they occur. Eesemblances between 
such words are obviously no proof of a common ancestry ; 
' and they are often met with in languages which have 
demonstrably had no connection with each other. So in 
mythology, where we find two stories of which the primi- 
tive character is perfectly transparent, we need have no 
difficulty in supposing them to have originated inde- 
pendently. The myth of Jack and his Beanstalk is 
found all over the world ; but the idea of a country 
above the sky, to which persons might gain access by 
climbing, is one which could hardly fail to occur to every 
barbarian. Among the American tribes, as well as 
among the Aryans, the rainbow and the Milky-Way 
have contributed the idea of a Bridge of the Dead, over 
which souls must pass on the way to the other world. 
In South Africa, as well as in Germany, the habits of the 
fox and of his brother the jackal have given rise to fables 
in which brute force is overcome by cunning. In many 
parts of the world we find curiously similar stories de- 
vised to account for the stumpy tails of the bear and 
hysena, the hairless tail of the rat, and the blindness of 
the mole. And in all countries may be found the be- 
liefs that men may be changed into beasts, or plants, or 
stones; that the sun is in some way tethered or con- 
strained to follow a certain course ; that the storm-cloud 
is a ravenous dragon ; and that there are talismans which 
will reveal hidden treasures. All these conceptions are 
so obvious to the uncivilized intelligence, that stories 
founded upon them need not be supposed to have a com- 
mon origin, unless there turns out to be a striking simi- 
larity among their minor details. On the other hand, 



152 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



the numerous myths of an all-destroying deluge have 
doubtless arisen partly from reminiscences of actually 
occurring local inundations, and partly from the fact 
that the Scriptural account of a deluge has been carried 
all over the world by Catholic and Protestant mission- 
aries.* 

By way of illustrating these principles, let us now cite 
a few of the American myths so carefully collected by 
Dr. Brinton in his admirable treatise. We shall not find 
in the mythology of the New World the wealth of wit 
and imagination which has so long delighted us in the 
stories of Herakles, Perseus, Hermes, Sigurd, and Indra. 
The mythic lore of the American Indians is compara- 
tively scanty and prosaic, as befits the product of a lower 
grade of culture and a more meagre intellect. Not only 
are the personages less characteristically pourtrayed, but 
there is a continual tendency to extravagance, the sure 
index of an inferior imagination. Nevertheless, after 
making due allowances for differences in the artistic 
method of treatment, there is between the mythologies 
of the Old and the New Worlds a fundamental resem- 
blance. We come upon solar myths and myths of the 
storm curiously blended with culture-myths, as in the 
cases of Hermes, Prometheus, and Kadmos. The Amer- 
ican parallels to these are to be found in the stories of 
Michabo, Viracocha, Ioskeha, and Quetzalcoatl. "As 
elsewhere the world over, so in America, many tribes had 
to tell of .... an august character, who taught them 
what they knew, — the tillage of the soil, the properties 
of plants, the art of picture-writing, the secrets of magic ; 
who founded their institutions and established their re- 
ligions ; who governed them long with glory abroad and 

* For various legends of a deluge, see Baring-Gould, Legends of ths 
Patriarchs and Prophets, pp. 85 - 106. 



MYTHS OF THE BARBARIC WORLD. 



153 



peace at home ; and finally did not die, but, like Frederic 
Barbarossa, Charlemagne, King Arthur, and all great 
heroes, vanished mysteriously, and still lives somewhere, 
ready at the right moment to return to his beloved peo- 
ple and lead them to victory and happiness." * Every 
one is familiar with the numerous legends of white- 
skinned, full-bearded heroes, like the mild Quetzalcoatl, 
who in times long previous to Columbus came from the far 
East to impart the rudiments of civilization and religion 
to the red men. By those who first heard these stories 
they were supposed, with naive Euhemerism, to refer to 
pre-Columbian visits of Europeans to this continent, like 
that of the Northmen in the tenth century. But a sci- 
entific study of the subject has dissipated such notions. 
These legends are far too numerous, they are too similar 
to each other, they are too manifestly symbolical, to admit 
of any such interpretation. By comparing them care- 
fully with each other, and with correlative myths of the 
Old World, their true character soon becomes apparent. 

One of the most widely famous of these culture-heroes 
was Manabozho or Michabo, the Great Hare. With en- 
tire unanimity, says Dr. Brinton, the various branches 
of the Algonquin race, " the Powhatans of Virginia, the 
Lenni Lenape of the Delaware, the warlike hordes of 
New England, the Ottawas of the far North, and the 
Western tribes, perhaps without exception, spoke of 
'this chimerical beast,' as one of the old missionaries 
calls it, as their common ancestor. The totem, or clan, 
which bore his name was looked up to with peculiar 
respect." Not only was Michabo the ruler and guardian 
of these numerous tribes, — he was the founder of their 
religious rites, the inventor of picture-writing, the ruler 
of the weather, the creator and preserver of earth and 

* Brinton, Myths of the New World, p. 160. 
7* 



154 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



heaven. " From a grain of sand brought from the bot- 
tom of the primeval ocean he fashioned the habitable 
land, and set it floating on the waters till it grew to such 
a size that a strong young wolf, running constantly, died 
of old age ere he reached its limits." He was also, like 
Nimrod, a mighty hunter. " One of his footsteps meas- 
ured eight leagues, the Great Lakes were the beaver-dams 
he built, and when the cataracts impeded his progress he 
tore them away with his hands." " Sometimes he was 
said to dwell in the skies with his brother, the Snow, or, 
like many great spirits, to have built his wigwam in the 

far North on some floe of ice in the Arctic Ocean 

But in the oldest accounts of the missionaries he was 
alleged to reside toward the East ; and in the holy for- 
mulas of the meda craft, when the winds are invoked to 
the medicine lodge, the East is summoned in his name, 
the door opens in that direction, and there, at the edge 
of the earth where the sun rises, on the shore of the infi- 
nite ocean that surrounds the land, he has his house, and 
sends the luminaries forth on their daily journeys." * 
Erom such accounts as this we see that Michabo was no 
more a wise instructor and legislator than Minos or Kad- 
mos. Like these heroes, he is a personification of the 
solar life-giving power, which daily comes forth from its 
home in the east, making the earth to rejoice. The ety- 
mology of his name confirms the otherwise clear indica- 
tions of the legend itself. It is compounded of michi, 
"great," and wabos, which means alike "hare" and 
" white." " Dialectic forms in Algonquin for white are 
wabi, wape, wampi, etc. ; for morning, wapan, tvapanch, 
opah; for east, vjapa, wanbun, etc.; for day, wompan, 
oppan ; for light, oppung" So that Michabo is the 
Great White One, the God of the Dawn and the East 



* Brinton, op. cit. p. 163. 



MYTHS OF THE BARBARIC WORLD. 155 



And the etymological confusion, by virtue of which he 
acquired his soubriquet of the Great Hare, affords a 
curious parallel to what has often happened in Aryan 
and Semitic mythology, as we saw when discussing the 
subject of werewolves. 

Keeping in mind this solar character of Michabo, let 
us note how full of meaning are the myths concerning 
him. In the first cycle of these legends, " he is grandson 
of the Moon, his father is the West Wind, and his mother, 
a maiden, dies in giving him birth at the moment of con- 
ception. For the Moon is the goddess of night ; the 
Dawn is her daughter, who brings forth the Morning, 
and perishes herself in the act ; and the West, the spirit 
of darkness, as the East is of light, precedes, and as it 
were begets the latter, as the evening does the morning. 
Straightway, however, continues the legend, the son 
sought the unnatural father to revenge the death of 
his mother, and then commenced a long and desperate 
struggle. It began on the mountains. The West was 
forced to give ground. Manabozho drove him across 
rivers and over mountains and lakes, and at last he came 
to the brink of this world. ' Hold,' cried he, ' my son, 
you know my power, and that it is impossible to kill me.' 
What is this but the diurnal combat of light and dark- 
ness, carried on from what time ' the jocund morn stands 
tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops,' across the wide world 
to the sunset, the struggle that knows no end, for both, 
the opponents are immortal ? " * 

Even the Veda nowhere affords a more transparent 
narrative than this. The Iroquois tradition is very simi- 
lar. In it appear twin brothers,f born of a virgin mother, 

* Brinton, op. cit. p. 167. 

+ Corresponding, in various degrees, to the Asvins, the Dioskouroi, 
and the brothers True and Untrue of Norse mythology. 



i 5 6 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



daughter of the Moon, who died in giving them life. Their 
names, Ioskeha and Tawiskara, signify in the Oneida dia- 
lect the White One and the Dark One. Under the influ- 
ence of Christian ideas the contest between the brothers 
has been made to assume a moral character, like the 
strife between Ormuzd and Ahriman. But no such in- 
tention appears in the original myth, and Dr. Brinton 
has shown that none of the American tribes had any con- 
ception of a Devil. When the quarrel came to blows, 
the dark brother was signally discomfited ; and the vic- 
torious Ioskeha, returning to his grandmother, " estab- 
lished his lodge in the far East, on the borders of the 
Great Ocean, whence the sun comes. In time he became 
the father of mankind, and special guardian of the Iro- 
quois." He caused the earth to bring forth, he stocked 
the woods with game, and taught his children the use of 
fire. " He it was who watched and watered their crops ; 
' and, indeed, without his aid,' says the old missionary, 
quite out of patience with their puerilities, ' they think 
they could not boil a pot.' " There was more in it than 
poor Brebeuf thought, as we are forcibly reminded by 
recent discoveries in physical science. Even civilized 
men would find it difficult to boil a pot without the aid 
of solar energy. Call him what we will,- — Ioskeha, 
Michabo, or Phoibos, — the beneficent Sun is the master 
and sustainer of us all ; and if we were to relapse into 
heathenism, like Erckmann-Chatrian's innkeeper, we could 
not do better than to select him as our chief object of 
worship. 

The same principles by which these simple cases are\ 
explained furnish also the key to the more complicated 
mythology of Mexico and Peru. Like the deities just 
discussed, Yiracocha, the supreme god of the Quichuas, 
rises from the bosom of Lake Titicaca and journeys west? 



MYTHS OF THE BARBARIC WORLD. 



157 



ward, slaying with his lightnings the creatures who op- 
pose him, until he finally disappears in the Western 
Ocean. Like Aphrodite, he bears in his name the evi- 
dence of his origin, Viracocha signifying "foam of the 
sea " ; and hence the " White One " (I'aitoe), the god of 
light rising white on the horizon, like the foam on the 
surface of the waves. The Aymaras spoke of their origi- 
nal ancestors as white ; and to this day, as Dr. Brinton 
informs us, the Peruvians call a white man Viracocha. 
The myth of Quetzalcoatl is of precisely the same charac- 
ter. All these solar heroes present in most of their quali- 
ties and achievements a striking likeness to those of the 
Old World. They combine the attributes of Apollo, 
Herakles, and Hermes. Like Herakles, they journey 
from east to west, smiting the powers of darkness, storm, 
and winter with the thunderbolts of Zeus or the unerring 
arrows of Phoibos, and sinking in a blaze of glory on 
the western verge of the world, where the waves meet 
the firmament. Or like Hermes, in a second cycle of 
legends, they rise with the soft breezes of a summer morn- 
ing, driving before them the bright celestial cattle whose 
udders are heavy with refreshing rain, fanning the flames 
which devour the forests, blustering at the doors of wig- 
wams, and escaping with weird laughter through vents 
and crevices. The white skins and flowing beards of 
these American heroes may be aptly compared to the fair 
faces and long golden locks of their Hellenic compeers. 
Yellow hair was in all probability as rare in Greece as a 
full beard in Peru or Mexico ; but in each case the de- 
scription suits the solar character of the hero. One 
important class of incidents, however is apparently quite 
absent from the American legends. We frequently see 
the Dawn described as a virgin mother who dies in giv- 
ing birth to the Day ; but nowhere do we remember see- 



i 5 8 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



ing her pictured as a lovely or valiant or crafty maiden, 
ardently wooed, but speedily forsaken by her solar lover. 
Perhaps in no respect is the superior richness and beauty 
of the Aryan myths more manifest than in this. Bryn- 
hild, Urvasi, Medeia, Ariadne, Oinone, and countless other 
kindred heroines, with their brilliant legends, could not 
be spared from the mythology of our ancestors without ( 
leaving it meagre indeed. These were the materials 
which Kalidasa, the Attic dramatists, and the bards of 
the Mbelungen found ready, awaiting their artistic treat- 
ment. But the mythology of the New World, with all 
its pretty and agreeable nawete, affords hardly enough, 
either of variety in situation or of complexity in motive, 
for a grand epic or a genuine tragedy. 

But little reflection is needed to assure us that the 
imagination of the barbarian, who either carries away his 
wife by brute force or buys her from her relatives as he 
would buy a cow, could never have originated legends in 
which maidens are lovingly solicited, or in which their 
favour is won by the performance of deeds of valour. 
These stories owe their existence to the romantic turn of 
mind which has always characterized the Aryan, whose 
civilization, even in the times before the dispersion of his 
race, was sufficiently advanced to allow of his entertain- 
ing such comparatively exalted conceptions of the rela- 
tions between men and women. The absence of these 
myths from barbaric folk-lore is, therefore, just what 
might be expected ; but it is a fact which militates 
against any possible hypothesis of the common origin 
of Aryan and barbaric mythology. If there were any 
genetic relationship between Sigurd and Ioskeha, be- 
tween Herakles and Michabo, it would be hard to tell 
why Brynhild and Iole should have disappeared entirely 
from one whole group of legends, while retained, in some 



MYTHS OF THE BARBARIC WORLD. 



159 



form or other, throughout the whole of the other group. 
On the other hand, the resemblances above noticed be- 
tween Aryan and American mythology fall very far short 
of the resemblances between the stories told in different 
parts of the Aryan domain. No barbaric legend, of genu- 
ine barbaric growth, has yet been cited which resembles 
any Aryan legend as the story of Punchkin resembles the 
story of the Heartless Giant. The myths of Michabo and 
Viracocha are direct copies, so to speak, of natural phe- 
nomena, just as imitative words are direct copies of natu- 
ral sounds. Neither the Eedskin nor the Indo-European 
had any choice as to the main features of the career of 
his solar divinity. He must be born of the Night, — or 
of the Dawn, — must travel westward, must slay harass- 
ing demons. Eliminatiog these points of likeness, the 
resemblance between the Aryan and barbaric legends is 
at once at an end. Such an identity in point of details 
as that between the wooden horse which enters Ilion, and 
the horse which bears Sigurd into the place where Bryn- 
hild is imprisoned, and the Druidic steed which leaps 
with Sculloge over the walls of Fiach's enchanted castle, 
is, I believe, nowhere to be found aftel we leave Indo- 
European territory. 

Our conclusion, therefore, must be, that while the 
legends of the Aryan and the non- Aryan worlds contain 
common mythical elements, the legends themselves are 
not of common origin. The fact that certain mythical 
ideas are possessed alike by different races, shows that in( 
each case a similar human intelligence has been at work 
explaining similar phenomena ; but in order to prove a 
family relationship between the culture of these differ- 
ent races, we need something more than this. We need 
to prove not only a community of mythical ideas, but 
also a community between the stories based upon these 



l60 MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 

ideas. We must show not only that Michabo is like 
Herakles in those striking features which the contempla- 
tion of solar phenomena would necessarily suggest to the 
imagination of the primitive myth-maker, but also that 
the two characters are similarly conceived, and that the 
two careers agree in seemingly arbitrary points of detail, 
as is the case in the stories of Punchkin and the Heart- 
less Giant. The mere fact that solar heroes, all over the 
world, travel in a certain path and slay imps of darkness 
is of great value as throwing light upon primeval habits 
of thought, but it is of no value as evidence for or against 
an alleged co mm unity of civilization between different 
races. The same is true of the sacredness universally 
attached to certain numbers. Dr. Brinton's opinion that 
the sanctity of the number four in nearly all systems of 
mythology is due to a primitive worship of the cardinal 
points, becomes very probable when we recollect that the 
similar pre-eminence of seven is almost demonstrably con- 
nected with the adoration of the sun, moon, and five vis- 
ible planets, which has left its record in the structure and 
nomenclature of the Aryan and Semitic week.* 

In view of these considerations, the comparison of bar- 
baric myths with each other and with the legends of the 
Aryan world becomes doubly interesting, as illustrating 
the similarity in the workings of the untrained intelli- 
gence the world over. In our first paper we saw how the 
moon-spots have been variously explained by Indo-Euro- 
peans, as a man with a thorn-bush or as two children 
bearing a bucket of water on a pole. In Ceylon it is 

* See Humboldt's Kosmos, Tom. III. pp. 469 - 476. A fetichistic 
regard for the cardinal points has not always been absent from the minds 
of persons instructed in a higher theology ; as witness a well-known 
passage in Irenaeus, and also the custom, well-nigh universal in Europe, 
of building Christian churches in a line east and west. 



MYTHS OF THE BARBARIO WORLD. l6l 



said that as Sakyamuni was one day wandering half 
starved in the forest, a pious hare met him, and offered 
itself to him to be slain and cooked for dinner ; where- 
upon the holy Buddha set it on high in the moon, that 
future generations of men might see it and marvel at its 
piety. In the Samoan Islands these dark patches are 
supposed to be portions of a woman's figure. A certain 
woman was once hammering something with a mallet, 
when the moon arose, looking so much like a bread-fruit 
that the woman asked it to come down and let her child 
eat off a piece of it ; but the moon, enraged at the insult, 
gobbled up woman, mallet, and child, and there, in the 
moon's belly, you may still behold them. According to 
the Hottentots, the Moon once sent the Hare to inform 
men that as she died away and rose again, so should men 
die and again come to life. But the stupid Hare forgot 
che purport of the message, and, coming down to the earth, 
proclaimed it far and wide that though the Moon was in- 
variably resuscitated whenever she died, mankind, on the 
other hand, should die and go to the Devil. When the 
silly brute returned to the lunar country and told what 
he had done, the Moon was so angry that she took up an 
axe and aimed a blow at his head to split it. But the 
axe missed and only cut his lip open ; and that was the 
origin of the " hare-lip." Maddened by the pain and the 
insult, the Hare flew at the Moon and almost scratched 
her eyes out ; and to this day she bears on her face the 
marks of the Hare's claws.* 

Again, every reader of the classics knows how Selene 
cast Endymion into a profound slumber because he re- 
fused her love, and how at sundown she used to come 

* Bleek, Hottentot Fables and Tales, p. 72. Compare the Fiji story 
of Ra Vula, the Moon, and Ra Kalavo, the Rat, in Tylor, Primitive 
Culture, I. 321. 

K 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



and stand above him on the Latmian hill, and watch him 
as he lay asleep on the marble steps of a temple half 
hidden among drooping elm-trees, over which clambered 
vines heavy with dark blue grapes. This represents the 
rising moon looking down on the setting sun ; in Labra- 
dor a similar phenomenon has suggested a somewhat dif- 
ferent story. Among the Esquimaux the Sun is a maiden 
and the Moon is her brother, who is overcome by a wick- 
ed passion for her. Once, as this girl was at a dancing- 
party in a friend's hut, some one came up and took hold 
of her by the shoulders and shook her, which is (accord- 
ing to the legend) the Esquimaux manner of declaring 
one's love. She could not tell who it was in the dark, 
and so she dipped her hand in some soot and smeared 
one of his cheeks with it. When a light was struck in 
the hut, she saw, to her dismay, that it was her brother, 
and, without waiting to learn any more, she took to her 
heels. He started in hot pursuit, and so they ran till 
they got to the end of the world, — the jumping-off 
place, — when they both jumped into the sky. There 
the Moon still chases his sister, the Sun ; and every now 
and then he turns his sooty cheek toward the earth, when 
he becomes so dark that you cannot see him.* 

Another story, which I cite from Mr. Tylor, shows that 
Malays, as well as Indo-Europeans, have conceived of the 
clouds as swan-maidens. In the island of Celebes it is 
said that K seven heavenly nymphs came down from the 
sky to bathe, and they were seen by Kasimbaha, who 
thought first that they were white doves, but in the bath 
he saw that they were women. Then he stole one of the 
thin robes that gave the nymphs their power of flying, 
and so he caught Utahagi, the one whose robe he had 
stolen, and took her for his wife, and she bore him a son 

* Tylor, Early History of Mankind, p. 327. 



MYTHS OF THE BARBARIC WORLD. 1 63 

Now she was called Utahagi from a single white hair she 
had, which was endowed with magic power, and this hair 
her husband pulled out. As soon as he had done it, 
there arose a great storm, and Utahagi went up to 
heaven. The child cried for its mother, and Kasim- 
baha was in great grief, and cast about how he should 
follow Utahagi up into the sky." Here we pass to the 
myth of Jack and the Beanstalk. " A rat gnawed the 
thorns off the rattans, and Kasimbaha clambered up by 
them with his son upon his back, till he came to heaven. 
There a little bird showed him the house of Utahagi, and 
after various adventures he took up his abode among the 
gods."* 

In Siberia we find a legend of swan-maidens, which 
also reminds us of the story of the Heartless Giant. A 
certain Samojed once went out to catch foxes, and found 
seven maidens swimming in a lake surrounded by gloomy 
pine-trees, while their feather dresses lay on the shore. 
He crept up and stole one of these dresses, and by and 
by the swan-maiden came to him shivering with cold and 
promising to become his wife if he would only give her 
back her garment of feathers. The ungallant fellow, 
however, did not care for a wife, but a little revenge was 
not unsuited to his way of thinking. There were seven 
robbers who used to prowl about the neighbourhood, and 
who, when they got home, finding their hearts in the 
way, used to hang them up on some pegs in the tent. 
One of these robbers had killed the Samojed's mother ; 
and so he promised to return the swan-maiden's dress 
after she should have procured for him these seven hearts. 
So she stole the hearts, and the Samojed smashed six of 
them, and then woke up the seventh robber, and told him 
to restore his mother to life, on pain of instant death. 



* Tylor, op. cit, p. 346. 



164 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



Then the robber produced a purse containing the old 
woman's soul, and going to the graveyard shook it over 
her bones, and she revived at once. Then the Samojed 
smashed the seventh heart, and the robber died ; and so 
the swan-maiden got back her plumage and new away 
rejoicing.* 

Swan-maidens are also, according to Mr. Baring-Gould, 
found among the Minussinian Tartars. But there the; 
appear as foul demons, like the Greek Harpies, who de 
light in drinking the blood of men slain in battle. Ther 
are forty of them, who darken the whole firmament i" 
their flight ; but sometimes they all coalesce into one grea 
black storm-fiend, who rages for blood, like a werewolf. 

In South Africa we find the werewolf himself. -f* A 
certain Hottentot was once travelling with a Bushwoman 
and her child, when they perceived at a distance a troop 
of wild horses. The man, being hungry, asked the 
woman to turn herself into a lioness and catch one of 
these horses, that they might eat of it ; whereupon the 
woman set down her child, and taking off a sort of petti- 
coat made of human skin became instantly transformed 
into a lioness, which rushed across the plain, struck down 
a wild horse and lapped its blood. The man climbed a 
tree in terror, and conjured his companion to resume her 
natural shape. Then the lioness came back, and putting 
on the skirt made of human skin reappeared as a woman, 
and took up her child, and the two friends resumed their 
journey after making a meal of the horse's flesh.J 

* Baring-Gould, Curious Myths, IT. 299-302. 

+ Speaking of beliefs in the Malay Archipelago, Mr. Wallace says : 
"It is universally believed in Lombock that some men have the power 
to turn themselves into crocodiles, which they do for the sake of devour- 
ing their enemies, and many strange tales are told of such transforma- 
tions." Wallace, Malay Archipelago, Vol. I. p. 251. 

J Bleek, Hottentot Fables and Tales, p. 58. 



MYTHS OF THE BARBARIC WORLD. 



I6 5 



The werewolf also appears in North America, duly 
furnished with Ms wolf-skin sack ; but neither in Amer- 
ica nor in Africa is he the genuine European werewolf, 
inspired by a diabolic frenzy, and ravening for human 
flesh. The barbaric myths testify to the belief that men 
can be changed into beasts or have in some cases de- 
scended from beast ancestors, but the application of this 
belief to the explanation of abnormal cannibal cravings 
seems to have been confined to Europe. The werewolf 
of the Middle Ages was not merely a transformed man, 
— he was an insane cannibal, whose monstrous appetite, 
due to the machinations of the Devil, showed its power 
over his physical organism by changing the shape of it. 
The barbaric werewolf is the product of a lower and 
simpler kind of thinking. There is no diabolism about 
him ; for barbaric races, while believing in the existence 
of hurtful and malicious fiends, have not a sufficiently 
vivid sense of moral abnormity to form the conception 
of diabolism. And the cannibal craving, which to the 
mediaeval European was a phenomenon so strange as to 
demand a mythological explanation, would not impress 
the barbarian as either very exceptional or very blame- 
worthy. 

In the folk-lore of the Zulus, one of the most quick- 
witted and intelligent of African races, the cannibal pos- 
sesses many features in common with the Scandinavian 
Troll, who also has a liking for human flesh. As we saw 
in the preceding paper, the Troll has very likely derived 
some of his characteristics from reminiscences of the 
barbarous races who preceded the Aryans in Central and 
Northern Europe. In like manner the long-haired can- 
nibal of Zulu nursery literature, who is always repre- 
sented as belonging to a distinct race, has been supposed 
to be explained by the existence of inferior races con- 



i66 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



quered and displaced by the Zulus. Nevertheless, as 
Dr. Callaway observes, neither the long-haired mountain 
cannibals of Western Africa, nor the Fulahs, nor the 
tribes of Eghedal described by Barth, " can be considered 
as answering to the description of long-haired as given 
in the Zulu legends of cannibals ; neither could they 

possibly have formed their historical basis It is 

perfectly clear that the cannibals of the Zulu legends are 
not common men; they are magnified into giants and 
magicians ; they are remarkably swift and enduring ; 
fierce and terrible warriors." Very probably they may 
have a mythical origin in modes of thought akin to those 
which begot the Panis of the Veda and the Northern 
Trolls. The parallelism is perhaps the most remarkable 
one which can be found in comparing barbaric with 
Aryan folk-lore. Like the Panis and Trolls, the canni- 
bals are represented as the foes of the solar hero Uthla- 
kanyana, who is almost as great a traveller as Odysseus, 
and whose presence of mind amid trying circumstances 
is not to be surpassed by that of the incomparable Boots. 
Uthlakanyana is as precocious as Herakles or Hermes. 
He speaks before he is born, and no sooner has he en- 
tered the world than he begins to outwit other people 
and get possession of their property. He works bitter 
ruin for the cannibals, who, with all their strength and 
fleetness, are no better endowed with quick wit than the 
Trolls, whom Boots invariably victimizes. On one of his 
journeys, Uthlakanyana fell in with a cannibaL Their 
greetings were cordial enough, and they ate a bit of leop- 
ard together, and began to build a house, and killed a 
couple of cows, but the cannibal's cow was lean, while 
Uthlakany ana's was fat. Then the crafty traveller, fear- 
ing that his companion might insist upon having the fat 
cow, turned and said, "'Let the house be thatched now; 



1 

MYTHS OF THE BARBARIC WORLD. l6? 



then we can eat our meat. You see the sky, that we 
shall get wet.' The cannibal said, ' You are right, child 
of my sister ; you are a man indeed in saying, let us 
thatch the house, for we shall get wet.' Uthlakanyana 
said, 'Do you do it then; I will go inside, and push the 
thatching-needle for you, in the house.' The cannibal 
went up. His hair was very, very long. Uthlakanyana 
went inside and pushed the needle for him. He thatched 
in the hair of the cannibal, tying it very tightly ; he 
knotted it into the thatch constantly, taking it by sep- 
arate locks and fastening it firmly, that it might be tightly 
fastened to the house." Then the rogue went outside 
and began to eat of the cow which was roasted. " The 
cannibal said, ' What are you about, child of my sister ? 
Let us just finish the house ; afterwards we can do that ; 
we will do it together.' Uthlakanyana replied, 'Come 
down then. I cannot go into the house any more. The 
thatching is finished.' The cannibal assented. When 
he thought he was going to quit the house, he was un- 
able to quit it. He cried out saying, ' Child of my sister, 
how have you managed your thatching ? ' Uthlakanyana 
said, ' See to it yourself. I have thatched well, for I shall 
not have any dispute. Now I am about to eat in peace ; 
I no longer dispute with anybody, for I am now alone 
with my cow.'" So the cannibal cried and raved and 
appealed in vain to Uthlakanyana's sense of justice, until 
by and by " the sky came with hailstones and lightning. 
Uthlakanyana took all the meat into the house ; he 
stayed in the house and lit a fire. It hailed and rained. 
The cannibal cried on the top of the house ; he was 
struck with the hailstones, and died there on the house. 
It cleared. Uthlakanyana went out and said, 'Uncle, 
just come down, and come to me. It has become clear. 
It no longer rains, and there is no more hail, neither is 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



there any more lightning. Why are you silent?' So 
Uthlakanyana ate his cow alone, until he had finished it. 
He then went on his way." * 

In another Zulu legend, a girl is stolen by cannibals, 
and shut up in the rock Itshe-likantunjambili, which, like 
the rock of the Forty Thieves, opens and shuts at the 
command of those who understand its secret. She gets 
possession of the secret and escapes, and when the mon, 
sters pursue her she throws on the ground a calabash ful) 
of sesame, which they stop to eat. At last, getting tired 
of running, she climbs a tree, and there she finds her 
brother, who, warned by a dream, has come out to look 
for her. They ascend the tree together until they come 
to a beautiful country well stocked with fat oxen. They 
kill an ox, and while its flesh is roasting they amuse them- 
selves by making a stout thong of its hide. By and by 
one of the cannibals, smelling the cooking meat, comes 
to the foot of the tree, and looking up discovers the boy 
and girl in the sky-country ! They invite him up there 
to share in their feast, and throw him an end of the 
thong by which to climb up. When the cannibal is 
dangling midway between earth and heaven, they let go 
the rope, and down he falls with a terrible crash.-)* 

In this story the enchanted rock opened by a talis- 
manic formula brings us again into contact with Indo- 
European folk-lore. And that the conception has in both 
cases been suggested by the same natural phenomenon is 
rendered probable by another Zulu tale, in which the 
cannibal's cave is opened by a swallow which flies in the 
air. Here we have the elements of a genuine lightning- 

* Callaway, Zulu Nursery Tales, pp. 27 - 30. 

t Callaway, op. cit. pp. 142-152 ; cf. a similar story in which the 
lion is fooled by the jackal. Bleek, op. cit. p. 7. I omit the sequel 
of the tale. 



MYTES OF THE BARBARIC WORLD. 169 



myth. We see that among these African barbarians, as 
well as among our own forefathers, the clouds have been 
conceived as birds carrying the lightning which can cleave 
the rocks. In America we find the same notion prevalent. 
The Dakotahs explain the thunder as " the sound of the 
cloud-bird flapping his wings/' and the Caribs describe 
the lightning as a poisoned dart which the bird blows 
through a hollow reed, after the Carib style of shooting.* 
On the other hand, the Kamtchatkans know nothing of a 
cloud-bird, but explain the lightning as something anal- 
ogous to the flames of a volcano. The Kamtchatkans 
say that when the mountain goblins have got their stoves 
well heated up, they throw overboard, with true barbaric 
shiftlessness, all the brands not needed for immediate use, 
which makes a volcanic eruption. So when it is summer 
on earth, it is winter in heaven ; and the gods, after heat- 
ing up their stoves, throw away their spare kindling- 
wood, which makes the lightning.-f- 

When treating of Indo-European solar myths, we saw 
the unvarying, unresting course of the sun variously 
explained as due to the subjection of Herakles to Eurys- 
theus, to the anger of Poseidon at Odysseus, or to the curse 
laid upon the Wandering Jew. The barbaric mind has 
worked at the same problem ; but the explanations 
which it has given are more childlike and more gro- 
tesque. A Polynesian myth tells how the Sun used to race 
through the sky so fast that men could not get enough 
daylight to hunt game for their subsistence. By and by 
an inventive genius, named Maui, conceived the idea of 
catching the Sun in a noose and making him go more 
deliberately. He plaited ropes and made a strong net, 
and, arming himself with the jawbone of his ancestress, 
Muri-ranga-whenua, called together all his brethren, and 

* Brinton, op. cit. p. 104. t Tylor, op. cit. p. 320. 

8 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



they journeyed to the place where the Sun rises, and 
there spread the net. When the Sun came up, he stuck 
his head and fore-paws into the net, and while the broth- 
ers tightened the ropes so that they cut him and made 
him scream for mercy, Maui beat him with the jawbone 
until he became so weak that ever since he has only been 
able to crawl through the sky. According to another 
Polynesian myth, there was once a grumbling Eadical, 
who never could be satisfied with the way in which 
things are managed on this earth. This bold Eadical set 
out to build a stone house which should last forever ; but 
the days were so short and the stones so heavy that he 
despaired of ever accomplishing his project. One night, 
as he lay awake thinking the matter over, it occurred to 
him that if he could catch the Sun in a net, he could 
have as much daylight as was needful in order to finish 
his house. So he borrowed a noose from the god Itu, 
and, it being autumn, when the Sun gets sleepy and stu- J 
pid, he easily caught the luminary. The Sun cried till 
his tears made a great freshet which nearly drowned the 
island ; but it was of no use ; there he is tethered to this 
day. 

Similar stories are met with in North 'America. A j 
Dog-Eib Indian once chased a squirrel up a tree until he 
reached the sky. There he set a snare for the squirrel 
and climbed down again. Next day the Sun was caught 
in the snare, and night came on at once. That is to say, 
the sun was eclipsed. "Something wrong up there," |j] 
thought the Indian, " I must have caught the Sun " ; and 
so he sent up ever so many animals to release the captive. jj 
They were all burned to ashes, but at last the mole, 
going up and burrowing out through the ground of the 
sky, (!) succeeded in gnawing asunder the cords of the 
snare. Just as it thrust its head out through the *>peBmg 



MYTHS OF THE BARBARIC WORLD. 



171 



made in the sky-ground, it received a flash of light 
which put its eyes out, and that is why the mole is blind. 
The Sun got away, but has ever since travelled more de- 
liberately.* 

These sun-myths, many more of which are to be found 
collected in Mr. Tylor's excellent treatise on " The Early 
History of Mankind," well illustrate both the similarity 
and the diversity of the results obtained by the primitive 
mind, in different times and countries, when engaged 
upon similar problems. No one would think of referring 
these stories to a common traditional origin with the 
myths of Herakles and Odysseus; yet both classes of 
tales were devised to explain the same phenomenon. 
Both to the Aryan and to the Polynesian the steadfast 
but deliberate journey of the sun through the firmament 
was a strange circumstance which called for explanation ; 
but while the meagre intelligence of the barbarian could 
only attain to the quaint conception of a man throwing 
a noose over the sun's head, the rich imagination of the 
Indo-European created the noble picture of Herakles 
doomed to serve the son of Sthenelos, in accordance with 
the resistless decree of fate. 

Another world-wide myth, which shows how similar 
are the mental habits of uncivilized men, is the myth of 
the tortoise. The Hindu notion of a great tortoise that 
lies beneath the earth and keeps it from falling is famil- 
iar to every reader. According to one account, this tor- 
toise, swimming in the primeval ocean, bears the earth 
on his back ; but by and by, when the gods get ready to 
destroy mankind, the tortoise will grow weary and sink 
under his load, and then the earth will be overwhelmed 
by a deluge. Another legend tells us that when the gods 
and demons took Mount Mandara for a churning-stick 

* Tylor, op. cit. pp. 338 - 343. 



172 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



and churned the ocean to make ambrosia, the god Vishnu 
took on the form of a tortoise and lay at the bottom of 
the sea, as a pivot for the whirling mountain to rest 
upon. But these versions of the myth are not primitive. 
In the original conception the world is itself a gigantic 
tortoise swimming in a boundless ocean ; the flat surface 
of the earth is the lower plate which covers the reptile's 
belly; the rounded shell which covers his back is the 
sky ; and the human race lives and moves and has its 
being inside of the tortoise. Now, as Mr. Tylor has 
pointed out, many tribes of Eedskins hold substantially 
the same theory of the universe. They regard the tor- 
toise as the symbol of the world, and address it as the 
mother of mankind. Once, before the earth was made, 
the king of heaven quarrelled with his wife, and gave 
her such a terrible kick that she fell down into the 
sea. Fortunately a tortoise received her on his back, 
and proceeded to raise up the earth, upon which the 
heavenly woman became the mother of mankind. These 
first men had white faces, and they used to dig in the 
ground to catch badgers. One day a zealous burrower 
thrust his knife too far and stabbed the tortoise, which 
immediately sank into the sea and drowned all the 
human race save one man.* In Finnish mythology the 
world is not a tortoise, but it is an egg, of which the 
white part is the ocean, the yolk is the earth, and the 
arched shell is the sky. In India this is the mundane 
egg of Brahma ; and it reappears among the Yorubas as 
a pair of calabashes put together like oyster-shells, one 
making a dome over the other. In Zulu-land the earth 
is a huge beast called Usilosimapundu, whose face is a 
rock, and whose mouth is very large and broad and red : 
* in some countries which were on his body it was win* 



* Tylor, op. cit. p. 336. 



MYTHS OF THE BARBARIC WORLD. 



173 



to, and in others it was early harvest." Many broad 
rivers flow over his back, and he is covered with forests 
and hills, as is indicated in his name, which means " the 
rugose or knotty-backed beast." In this group of con- 
ceptions may be seen the origin of Sindbad's great fish, 
which lay still so long that sand and clay gradually ac- 
cumulated upon its back, and at last it became covered 
with trees. And lastly, passing from barbaric folk-lore 
and from the Arabian Nights to the highest level of Indo- 
European intelligence, do we not find both Plato and 
Kepler amusing themselves with speculations in which 
the earth figures as a stupendous animal ? 



November, 1870. 



174 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



VI. 

JUVEOTUS MUM)I .* 

TWELVE years ago, when, in concluding his " Studies 
on Homer and the Homeric Age," Mr. Gladstone 
applied to himself the warning addressed by Agamemnon 
to the priest of Apollo, " Let not Nemesis catch me by the 
swift ships, 

rj vvv hrjBvvovr, rj varepov avBis lovra" 

he would seem to have intended it as a last farewell to 
classical studies. Yet, whatever his intentions may have 
been, they have yielded to the sweet desire of revisiting 
familiar ground, — a desire as strong in the breast of the 
classical scholar as was the yearning which led Odysseus 
to reject the proffered gift of immortality, so that he 
might but once more behold the wreathed smoke curl- 
ing about the roofs of his native Ithaka. In this new 
treatise, on the " Youth of the World," Mr. Gladstone 
discusses the same questions which were treated in his 
earlier work ; and the main conclusions reached in the 
" Studies on Homer" are here so little modified with refer- 
ence to the recent progress of archaeological inquiries, 
that the book can hardly be said to have had any other 
reason for appearing, save the desire of loitering by the 
ships of the Argives, and of returning thither as often as 
possible. 

* Juventus Mnndi. The Gods and Men of the Heroic Age. By the 
Rt. Hon, William Ewart Gladstone. Boston : Little, Brown, & Co. 
1869. 



JUVENTUS MUNDI. 



175 



The title selected by Mr. Gladstone for his new work 
is either a very appropriate one or a strange misnomer, 
according to the point of view from which it is regarded. 
Such being the case, we might readily acquiesce in its 
use, and pass it by without comment, trusting that the 
author understood himself when he adopted it, were it 
not that by incidental references, and especially by his 
allusions to the legendary literature of the Jews, Mr. 
Gladstone shows that he means more by the title than it 
can fairly be made to express. An author who seeks to 
determine prehistoric events by references to Kadmos, 
and Danaos, and Abraham, is at once liable to the sus- 
picion of holding very inadequate views as to the char- 
acter of the epoch which may properly be termed the 
" youth of the world." Often in reading Mr. Gladstone 
we are reminded of Eenan's strange suggestion that an 
exploration of the Hindu Kush territory, whence prob- 
ably came the primitive Aryans, might throw some new 
light on the origin of language. Nothing could well be 
more futile. The primitive Aryan language has already 
been partly reconstructed for us ; its grammatical forms 
and syntactic devices are becoming familiar to scholars ; 
one great philologist has even composed a tale in it ; yet 
in studying this long-buried dialect we are not much 
nearer the first beginnings of human speech than in 
studying the Greek of Homer, the Sanskrit of the Vedas, 
or the Umbrian of the Iguvine Inscriptions. The Aryan 
mother-tongue had passed into the last of the three stages 
of linguistic growth long before the break-up of the 
tribal communities in Aryana-vaedjo, and at that early 
date presented a less primitive structure than is to be 
seen in the Chinese or the Mongolian of our own times. 
So the state of society depicted in the Homeric poems, 
and well illustrated by Mr. Gladstone, is many degrees 



176 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



less primitive than that which is revealed to us by the 
archaeological researches either of Pictet and Windisch- 
mann, or of Tylor, Lubbock, and M'Lennan. We shall 
gather evidences of this as we proceed. Meanwhile let 
us remember that at least eleven thousand years before 
the Homeric age men lived in communities, and manu- 
factured pottery on the banks of the Nile; and let us 
not leave wholly out of sight that more distant period, 
perhaps a million years ago, when sparse tribes of savage 
men, contemporaneous with the mammoths of Siberia 
and the cave-tigers of Britain, struggled against the in- 
tense cold of the glacial winters. 

Nevertheless, though the Homeric age appears to be a 
late one when considered with reference to the whole 
career of the human race, there is a point of view from 
which it may be justly regarded as the " youth of the 
world." However long man may have existed upon the 
earth, he becomes thoroughly and distinctly human in 
the eyes of the historian only at the epoch at which he 
began to create for himself a literature. As far back as 
we can trace the progress of the human race continuously 
by means of the written word, so far do we feel a true 
historical interest in its fortunes, and pursue our studies 
with a sympathy which the mere lapse of time is pow- 
erless to impair. But the primeval man, whose history 
never has been and never will be written, whose career 
on the earth, dateless and chartless, can be dimly re- 
vealed to us only by palaeontology, excites in us a very 
different feeling. Though with the keenest interest we 
ransack every nook and corner of the earth's surface for 
information about him, we are all the while aware that 
what we are studying is human zoology and not history. 
Our Neanderthal man is a specimen, not a character. We 
cannot ask him the Homeric question, what is his name, 



JUVENTUS MUNDL 



177 



who were his parents, and how did he get where we 
found him. His language has died with him, and he can 
render no account of himself. We can only regard him 
specifically as Homo Anthropos, a creature of bigger brain 
than his congener Homo Pithekos, and of vastly greater 
promise. But this, we say, is physical science, and not 
history. 

For the historian, therefore, who studies man in his 
various social relations, the youth of the world is the 
period at which literature begins. We regard the history 
of the western world as beginning about the tenth cen- 
tury before the Christian era, because at that date we 
find literature, in Greece and Palestine, beginning to 
throw direct light upon the social and intellectual condi- 
tion of a portion of mankind. That great empires, rich 
in historical interest and in materials for sociological 
generalizations, had existed for centuries before that 
date, in Egypt and Assyria, we do not doubt, since they 
appear at the dawn of history with all the marks of great 
antiquity; but the only steady historical light thrown 
upon them shines from the pages of Greek and Hebrew 
authors, and these know them only in their latest period. 
For information concerning their early careers we must 
look, not to history, but to linguistic archaeology, a science 
which can help us to general results, but cannot enable 
us to fix dates, save in the crudest manner. 

We mention the tenth century before Christ as the 
earliest period at which we can begin to study human 
society in general and Greek society in particular, through 
the medium of literature. But, strictly speaking, the 
epoch in question is one which cannot be fixed with 
accuracy. The earliest ascertainable date in Greek 
history is that of the Olympiad of Koroibos, B. C. 776. 
There is no doubt that the Homeric poems were written 

8* L 



i;8 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



before this date, and that Homer is therefore strictly 
prehistoric. Had this fact been duly realized by those 
scholars who have not attempted to deny it, a vast 
amount of profitless discussion might have been avoided. 
Sooner or later, as Grote says, " the lesson must be learnt, 
hard and painful though it be, that no imaginable reach 
of critical acumen will of itself enable us to discriminate 
fancy from reality, in the absence of a tolerable stock of 
evidence." We do not know who Homer was; we do 
not know where or when he lived ; and in all probability 
we shall never know. The data for settling the question 
are not now accessible, and it is not likely that they will 
ever be discovered. Even in early antiquity the question 
was wrapped in an obscurity as deep as that which 
shrouds it to-day. The case between the seven or eight 
cities which claimed to be the birthplace of the poet, 
and which Welcker has so ably discussed, cannot be 
decided. The feebleness of the evidence brought into 
court may be judged from the fact that the claims of 
Chios and the story of the poet's blindness rest alike 
upon a doubtful allusion in the Hymn to Apollo, which 
Thukydides (III. 104) accepted as authentic. The ma- 
jority of modern critics have consoled themselves with the 
vague conclusion that, as between the two great divisions 
of the early Greek world, Homer at least belonged to 
the Asiatic. But Mr. Gladstone has shown good reasons 
for doubting this opinion. He has pointed out several 
instances in which the poems seem to betray a closer 
topographical acquaintance with European than with 
Asiatic Greece, and concludes that Athens and Argos 
have at least as good a claim to Homer as Chios or 
Smyrna. 

It is far more desirable that we should form an approx- 
imate opinion as to the date of the Homeric poems, than 



JUVENTUS MUNDI. 



1 79 



that we should 'seek to determine the exact locality in 
which they originated. Yet the one question is hardly 
less obscure than the other. Different writers of antiq- 
uity assigned eight different epochs to Homer, of which 
the earliest is separated from the most recent by an in- 
terval of four hundred and sixty years, — a period as 
long as that which separates the Black Prince from the 
Duke of Wellington, or the age of Perikles from the 
Christian era. While Theopompos quite preposterously 
brings him down as late as the twenty-third Olympiad, 
Krates removes him to the twelfth century B. C. The 
date ordinarily accepted by modern critics is the one 
assigned by Herodotos, 880 B. C. Yet Mr. Gladstone 
shows reasons, which appear to me convincing, for doubt- 
ing or rejecting this date. 

I refer to the much-abused legend of the Children of 
Herakles, which seems capable of yielding an item of 
trustworthy testimony, provided it be circumspectly dealt 
with. I differ from Mr. Gladstone in not regarding the 
legend as historical in its present shape. In my appre- 
hension, Hyllos and Oxylos, as historical personages, have 
> no value whatever ; and I faithfully follow Mr. Grote, in 
refusing to accept any date earlier than the Olympiad of 
Koroibos. The tale of the " Eeturn of the Herakleids " 
is undoubtedly as unworthy of credit as the legend of 
Hengst and Horsa ; yet, like the latter, it doubtless em- 
bodies a historical occurrence. One cannot approve, as 
scholarlike or philosophical, the scepticism of Mr. Cox, 
who can see in the whole narrative nothing but a solar 
myth. There certainly was a time when the Dorian 
tribes — described in the legend as the allies of the 
Children of Herakles — conquered Peloponnesos ; and that 
time was certainly subsequent to the composition of the 
Homeric poems. It is incredible that the Iliad and the 



180 MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 

Odyssey should ignore the existence of Dorians in Pelo- 
ponnesos, if there were Dorians not only dwelling but 
ruling there at the time when the poems were written. 
The poems are very accurate and rigorously consistent 
in their use of ethnical appellatives; and their author, 
in speaking of Achaians and Argives, is as evidently 
alluding to peoples directly known to him, as is Shake- 
speare when he mentions Danes and Scotchmen. Now 
Homer knows Achaians, Argives, and Pelasgians dwell- 
ing in Peloponnesos ; and he knows Dorians also, but 
only as a people inhabiting Crete. (Odyss. XIX. 175.) 
"With Homer, moreover, the Hellenes are not the Greeks 
in general, but only a people dwelling in the north, in 
Thessaly. When these poems were written, Greece was 
not known as Hellas, but as Achaia, — the whole country 
taking its name from the Achaians, the dominant race in 
Peloponnesos. Now at the beginning of the truly his- 
torical period, in the eighth century B. C., all this is 
changed. The Greeks as a people are called Hellenes ; 
the Dorians rule in Peloponnesos, while their lands are 
tilled by Argive Helots ; and the Achaians appear only 
as an insignificant people occupying the southern shore 
of the Corinthian Gulf. How this change took place we 
cannot tell. The explanation of it can never be obtained 
from history, though some light may perhaps be thrown 
upon it by linguistic archaeology. But at all events it 
was a great change, and could not have taken place in a 
moment. It is fair to suppose that the Helleno-Dorian 
conquest must have begun at least a century before the 
first Olympiad ; for otherwise the geographical limits 
of the various Greek races would not have been so com- 
pletely established as we find them to have been at that 
date. The Greeks, indeed, supposed it to have begun at 
least three centuries earlier, but it is impossible to collect 



JUVENTUS MUNDT. l8l 

evidence which will either refute or establish that opin- 
ion. For our purposes it is enough to know that the con- 
quest could not have taken place later than 900 B. C. ; 
and if this be the case, the minimum date for the com- 
position of the Homeric poems must be the tenth century 
before Christ; which is, in fact, the date assigned by 
Aristotle. Thus far, and no farther, I believe it possible 
to go with safety. Whether the poems were composed in 
the tenth, eleventh, or twelfth century cannot be deter- 
mined. We are justified only in placing them far enc 
back to allow the Helleno-Dorian conquest to inter 1 
between their composition and the beginning of reco 
history. The tenth century B. C. is the latest date which 
will account for all the phenomena involved in the case, 
and with this result we must be satisfied. Even on this 
showing, the Iliad and Odyssey appear as the oldest ex- 
isting specimens of Aryan literature, save perhaps the 
hymns of the Big- Veda and the sacred books of the 
Avesta. 

The apparent difficulty of preserving such long poems 
for three or four centuries without the aid of writing may 
seem at first sight to justify the hypothesis of Wolf, that 
they are mere collections of ancient ballads, like those 
which make up the Mahabharata, preserved in the 
memories of a dozen or twenty bards, and first arranged 
under the orders of Peisistratos. But on a careful ex- 
amination this hypothesis is seen to raise more difficul- 
ties than it solves. What was there in the position of 
Peisistratos, or of Athens itself in the sixth century 
B. C, so authoritative as to compel all Greeks to recog- 
nize the recension then and there made of their revered 
poet ? Besides which the celebrated ordinance of Solon 
respecting the rhapsodes at the Panathenaia obliges us 
to infer the existence of written manuscripts of Homer 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



previous to 550 B. C. As Mr. Grote well observes, the 
interference of Peisistratos "presupposes a certain fore- 
known and ancient aggregate, the main lineaments of 
which were familiar to the Grecian public, although 
many of the rhapsodes in their practice may have de- 
viated from it both by omission and interpolation. In 
correcting the Athenian recitations conformably with 
such understood general type, Peisistratos might hope 
both to procure respect for Athens and to constitute a 
fashion for the rest of Greece. But this step of ' collect- 
ing the torn body of sacred Homer ' is something gener- 
ically different from the composition of a new Iliad out 
of pre-existing songs : the former is as easy, suitable, and 
promising as the latter is violent and gratuitous." * 

As for Wolf's objection, that the Iliad and Odyssey are 
too long to have been preserved by memory, it may be 
met by a simple denial. It is a strange objection indeed, 
coming ^rom a man of Wolf's retentive memory. I do 
not see how the acquisition of the two poems can be 
Jec as such a very arduous task ; and if literature 
scanty now as in Greek antiquity, there are 
many scholars who would long since have had 
them at their tongues' end. Sir G. C. Lewis, with but 
little conscious effort, managed to carry in his head a 
very considerable portion of Greek and Latin classic 
literature ; and Mebuhr (who once restored from recol- 
lection a book of accounts which had been accidentally 
destroyed) was in the habit of referring to book and 
chapter of an ancient author without consulting his 
notes. Nay, there is Professor Sophocles, of Harvard 
University, who, if you suddenly stop and interrogate 
him in the street, will tell you just how many times any 
given Greek word occurs in Thukydides, or in iEschylos, 

* Hist. Greece, Vol. II. p. 208. 



JUVENTUS MUNDI. 



183 



or in Plato, and will obligingly rehearse for you the con- 
text. If all extant copies of the Homeric poems were 
to be gathered together and burnt up to-day, like Don 
Quixote's library, or like those Arabic manuscripts of 
which Cardinal Ximenes made a bonfire in the streets 
of Granada, the poems could very likely be reproduced 
and orally transmitted for several generations ; and much 
easier must it have been for the Greeks to preserve these 
books, which their imagination invested with a quasi- 
sanctity, and which constituted the greater part of the 
literary furniture of their minds. In Xenophon's time 
there were educated gentlemen at Athens who could re- 
peat both Iliad and Odyssey verbatim. (Xenoph. Sym- 
pos., III. 5.) Besides this, we know that at Chios there 
was a company of bards, known as Homerids, whose 
business it was to recite these poems from memory ; and 
from the edicts of Solon and the Sikyonian Kleisthenes 
(Herod., V. 67), we may infer that the case was the same 
in other parts of Greece. Passages from the Iliad used 
to be sung at the Pythian festivals, to the accompani- 
ment of the harp (Athenseus, XIV. 638), and in at least 
two of the Ionic islands of the iEgsean there were regular 
competitive exhibitions by trained young men, at which 
prizes were given to the best reciter. The difficulty of 
preserving the poems, under such circumstances, becomes 
very insignificant ; and the Wolfian argument quite van- 
ishes when we reflect that it would have been no easier 
to preserve a dozen or twenty short poems than two long 
ones. Nay, the coherent, orderly arrangement of the 
Iliad and Odyssey would make them even easier to re- 
member than a group of short rhapsodies not consecu- 
tively arranged. 

When we come to interrogate the poems themselves, 
We find in them quite convincing evidence that they 



1 84 MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 

were originally composed for the ear alone, and without 
reference to manuscript assistance. They abound in 
catchwords, and in verbal repetitions. The " Catalogue 
of Ships," as Mr. Gladstone has acutely observed, is 
arranged in well-defined sections, in such a way that the 
end of each section suggests the beginning of the next 
one. It resembles the versus memoriales found in old- 
fashioned grammars. But the most convincing proof of 
all is to be found in the changes which Greek pronuncia- 
tion went through between the ages of Homer and 
Peisistratos. " At the time when these poems were com- 
posed, the digamma (or w) was an effective consonant, 
and figured as such in the structure of the verse ; at the 
time when they were committed to writing, it had ceased 
to be pronounced, and therefore never found a place in 
any of the manuscripts, — insomuch that the Alexan- 
drian critics, though they knew of its existence in the 
much later poems of Alkaios and Sappho, never recog- 
nized it in Homer. The hiatus, and the various perplex- 
ities of metre, occasioned by the loss of the digamma, 
were corrected by different grammatical stratagems. But 
the whole history of this lost letter is very curious, and 
is rendered intelligible only by the supposition that the 
Iliad and Odyssey belonged for a wide space of time to 
the memory, the voice, and the ear exclusively."* 

Many of these facts are of course fully recognized by 
the Wolfians ; but the inference drawn from them, that 
the Homeric poems began to exist in a piecemeal con- 
dition, is, as we have seen, unnecessary. These poems 
may indeed be compared, in a certain sense, with the 
early sacred and epic literature of the Jews, Indians, and 
Teutons. But if we assign a plurality of composers to 
the Psalms and Pentateuch, the Mahabharata, the Vedas, 

* Grote, Hist. Greece, Vol. II. p. 198. 



JUVENTUS MUNDI. 1 85 

and the Edda, we do so because of internal evidence 
furnished by the books themselves, and not because 
these books could not have been preserved by oral tra- 
dition. Is there, then, in the Homeric poems any such 
internal evidence of dual or plural origin as is furnished 
by the interlaced Elohistic and Jehovistic documents of 
the Pentateuch ? A careful investigation will show that 
there is not. Any scholar who has given some attention 
to the subject can readily distinguish the Elohistic from 
the Jehovistic portions of the Pentateuch ; and, save in 
the case of a few sporadic verses, most Biblical critics 
coincide in the separation which they make between the 
two. But the attempts which have been made to break 
up the Iliad and Odyssey have resulted in no such har- 
monious agreement. There are as many systems as there 
are critics, and naturally enough. For the Iliad and the 
Odyssey are as much alike as two peas, and the resem- 
blance which holds between the two holds also between 
the different parts of each poem. From the appearance 
of the injured Chryses in the Grecian camp down to the 
intervention of Athene on the field of contest at Ithaka, 
We find in each book and in each paragraph the same 
style, the same peculiarities of expression, the same habits 
of thought, the same quite unique manifestations of the 
faculty of observation. Now if the style were common- 
place, the observation slovenly, or the thought trivial, as 
is wont to be the case in ballad-literature, this argument 
from similarity might not carry with it much conviction. 
But when we reflect that throughout the whole course 
of human history no other works, save the best tragedies 
of Shakespeare, have ever been written which for com- 
bined keenness of observation, elevation of thought, and 
sublimity of style can compare with the Homeric poems, 
we must admit that the argument has very great weight 



1 86 MYTHS AXD MYTH-MAKERS. 

indeed. Let us take, for example, the sixth and twenty> 
fourth books of the Iliad. According to the theory of 
Lachmann, the most eminent champion of the Wolfian 
hypothesis, these are by different authors. Human speech 
has perhaps never been brought so near to the limit of 
its capacity of expressing deep emotion as in the scene 
between Priam and Achi Ileus in the twenty-fourth book ; 
while the interview between Hektor and Andromache in 
the sixth similarly wellnigh exhausts the power of lan- 
guage. !N"ow, the literary critic has a right to ask whether 
it is probable that two such passages, agreeing perfectly 
in turn of expression, and alike exhibiting the same un- 
approachable degree of excellence, could have been pro- 
duced by two different authors. And the physiologist 
— with some inward misgivings suggested by Mr. Gal- 
ton's theory that the Greeks surpassed us in genius even 
as we surpass the negroes — has a right to ask whether 
it is in the natural course of things for two such wonder- 
ful poets, strangely agreeing in their minutest psycho- 
logical characteristics, to be produced at the same time. 
And the difficulty thus raised becomes overwhelming 
ft-hen we reflect that it is the coexistence of not two 
only, but at least twenty such geniuses which the AVolf- 
ian hypothesis requires us to account for. That theory 
worked very well as long as scholars thoughtlessly as- 
sumed that the Iliad and Odyssey were analogous to 
ballad poetry. But, except in the simplicity of the prim- 
itive diction, there is no such analogy. The power and 
beauty of the Iliad are never so hopelessly lost as when 
it is rendered into the style of a modern ballad. One 
might as well attempt to preserve the grandeur of the 
triumphant close of Milton's Lycidas by turning it into 
the light Anacreontics of the ode to " Eros stung by a 
Bee." The peculiarity of the Homeric poetry, which 



JUVENTUS MUNDI. 



defies translation, is its union of the simplicity charac- 
teristic of an early age with a sustained elevation of style, 
which can be explained only as due to individual genius. 

The same conclusion is forced upon us when we ex- 
amine the artistic structure of these poems. With regard 
to the Odyssey in particular, Mr. Grote has elaborately 
shown that its structure is so thoroughly integral, that no 
considerable portion could be subtracted without con- 
verting the poem into a more or less admirable fragment. 
The Iliad stands in a somewhat different position. There 
are unmistakable peculiarities in its structure, which 
have led even Mr. Grote, who utterly rejects the Wolf- 
ian hypothesis, to regard it as made up of two poems ; 
although he inclines to the belief that the later poem 
was grafted upon the earlier by its own author, by way 
of further elucidation and expansion ; just as Goethe, in 
his old age, added a new part to " Faust." According to 
Mr. Grote, the Iliad, as originally conceived, was properly 
an Achilleis ; its design being, as indicated in the opening 
lines of the poem, to depict the wrath of Achilleus and 
the unutterable woes which it entailed upon the Greeks. 
The plot of this primitive Achilleis is entirely contained 
in Books I., VIII., and XI. -XXII. ; and, in Mr. Grote's 
opinion, the remaining books injure the symmetry of this 
plot by unnecessarily prolonging the duration of the 
Wrath, while the embassy to Achilleus, in the ninth book, 
unduly anticipates the conduct of Agamemnon in the 
nineteenth, and is therefore, as a piece of bungling work, 
to be referred to the hands of an inferior interpolator. 
Mr. Grote thinks it probable that these books, with the 
exception of the ninth, were subsequently added by the 
poet, with a view to enlarging the original Achilleis into 
a real Iliad, describing the war of the Greeks against 
Troy. With reference to this hypothesis, I gladly admit 



i88 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



that Mr. Grote is, of all men now living, the one best 
entitled to a reverential hearing on almost any point 
connected with Greek antiquity. Nevertheless it seems 
to me that his theory rests solely upon imagined difficul- 
ties which have no real existence. I doubt if any scholar, 
reading the Iliad ever so much, would ever be struck by 
these alleged inconsistencies of structure, unless they 
were suggested by some a priori theory. And I fear 
that the Wolfian theory, in spite of Mr. Grote's emphatic 
rejection of it, is responsible for some of these over-refined 
criticisms. Even as it stands, the Iliad is not an account 
of the war against Troy. It begins in the tenth year of the 
siege, and it does not continue to the capture of the city. 
It is simply occupied with an episode in the war, — with 
the wrath of Achilleus and its consequences, according 
to the plan marked out in the opening lines. The sup- 
posed additions, therefore, though they may have given 
to the poem a somewhat wider scope, have not at any 
rate changed its primitive character of an Achilleis. To 
my mind they seem even called for by the original 
conception of the consequences of the wrath. To 
have inserted the battle at the ships, in which Sarpedon 
breaks down the wall of the Greeks, immediately after 
the occurrences of the first book, would have been too 
abrupt altogether. Zeus, after his reluctant promise to 
Thetis, must not be expected so suddenly to exhibit such 
fell determination. And after the long series of books 
describing the valorous deeds of Aias, Diomedes, Aga- 
memnon, Odysseus, and Menelaos, the powerful interven- 
tion of Achilleus appears in far grander proportions than 
would otherwise be possible. As for the embassy to 
Achilleus, in the ninth book, I am unable to see how the 
final reconciliation with Agamemnon would be complete 
without it. As Mr. Gladstone well observes, what Achil- 



JUVENTUS MUNDI. 



lens wants is not restitution, but apology; and Aga- 
memnon offers no apology until the nineteenth book. In 
his answer to the ambassadors, Achilleus scornfully re- 
jects the proposals which imply that the mere return of 
Briseis will satisfy his righteous resentment, unless it be 
accompanied with that public humiliation to which cir- 
cumstances have not yet compelled the leader of the 
Greeks to subject himself. Achilleus is not to be bought 
or cajoled. Even the extreme distress of the Greeks in 
the thirteenth book does not prevail upon him ; nor is 
there anything in the poem to show that he ever would 
have laid aside his wrath, had not the death of Patroklos 
supplied him with a new and wholly unforeseen motive. 
It seems to me that his entrance into the battle after the 
death of his friend would lose half its poetic effect, were 
it not preceded by some such scene as that in the ninth 
book, in which he is represented as deaf to all ordinary 
inducements. As for the two concluding books, which 
Mr. Grote is inclined to regard as a subsequent addition, 
not necessitated by the plan of the poem, I am at a loss 
to see how the poem can be considered complete without 
them. To leave the bodies of Patroklos and Hektor 
unburied would be in the highest degree shocking to 
Greek religious feelings. Eemembering the sentence in- 
curred, in far less superstitious times, by the generals at 
Arginusai, it is impossible to believe that any conclusion 
which left Patroklos's manes unpropitiated, and the mu- 
tilated corpse of Hektor unransomed, could have satisfied * 
either the poet or his hearers. For further particulars I 
must refer the reader to the excellent criticisms of Mr. 
Gladstone, and also to the article on " Greek History and 
Legend " in the second volume of Mr. Mill's " Disserta- 
tions and Discussions." A careful study of the arguments 
of these writers, and, above all, a thorough and independent 



190 MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 

examination of the Iliad itself, will, I believe, convince the 
student that this great poem is from beginning to end the 
consistent production of a single author. 

The arguments of those who would attribute the Iliad 
and Odyssey, taken as wholes, to two different authors, 
rest chiefly upon some apparent discrepancies in the 
mythology of the two poems ; but many of these diffi- 
culties have been completely solved by the recent pro- 
gress of the science of comparative mythology. Thus, 
for example, the fact that, in the Iliad, Hephaistos is called 
the husband of Charis, while in the Odyssey he is called 
the husband of Aphrodite, has been cited even by Mr. 
Grote as evidence that the two poems are not by the 
same author. It seems to me that one such discrepancy, 
in the midst of complete general agreement, would be 
much better explained as Cervantes explained his own 
inconsistency with reference to the stealing of Sancho's 
mule, in the twenty-second chapter of "Don Quixote." 
But there is no discrepancy. Aphrodite, though originally 
the moon-goddess, like the German Horsel, had before 
Homer's time acquired many of the attributes of the 
dawn-goddess Athene, while her lunar characteristics had 
been to a great extent transferred to Artemis and Per- 
sephone. In her renovated character, as goddess of the 
dawn, Aphrodite became identified with Charis, who 
appears in the Eig-Veda as dawn-goddess. In the post- 
Homeric mythology, the two were again separated, and 
Charis, becoming divided in personality, appears as the 
Charites, or Graces, who were supposed to be constant 
attendants of Aphrodite. But in the Homeric poems 
the two are still identical, and either Charis or Aphrodite 
may be called the wife of the fire-god, without incon- 
sistency. 

Thus to sum up, I believe that Mr. Gladstone is quite 



JUVENTUS MUNDI. 191 

right in maintaining that both the Iliad and Odyssey are, 
from beginning to end, with the exception of a few in- 
significant interpolations, the work of a single author, 
whom we have no ground for calling by any other name 
than that of Homer. I believe, moreover, that this 
author lived before the beginning of authentic history, 
and that we can determine neither his age nor his coun- 
try with precision. We can only decide that he was a 
Greek who lived at some time previous to the year 900 B.C. 

Here, however, I must begin to part company with 
Mr. Gladstone, and shall henceforth unfortunately have 
frequent occasion to differ from him on points of funda- 
mental importance. For Mr. Gladstone not only regards 
the Homeric age as strictly within the limits of authentic 
history, but he even goes much further than this. He 
would not only fix the date of Homer positively in the 
twelfth century B. C, but he regards the Trojan war as a 
purely historical event, of which Homer is the authentic 
historian and the probable eye-witness. Nay, he even 
takes the word of the poet as proof conclusive of the 
historical character of events happening several genera- 
tions before the Troika, according to the legendary chro- 
nology. He not only regards Agamemnon, Achilleus, and 
Paris as actual personages, but he ascribes the same re- 
ality to characters like Danaos, Kadmos, and Perseus, and 
talks of the Pelopid and Aiolid dynasties, and the empire 
of Minos, with as much confidence as if he were dealing 
with Karlings or Capetians, or with the epoch of the 
Crusades. 

It is disheartening, at the present day, and after so much 
has been finally settled by writers like Grote, Mommsen, 
and Sir G. C. Lewis, to come upon such views in the 
work of a man of scholarship and intelligence. One 
begins to wonder how many more times it will be neces- 



192 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



sary to prove that dates and events are of no historical 
value, unless attested by nearly contemporary evidence. 
Pausanias and Plutarch were able men no doubt, and 
Thukydides was a profound historian ; but what these 
writers thought of the Herakleid invasion, the age of 
Homer, and the war of Troy, can have no great weight 
with the critical historian, since even in the time of 
Thukydides these events were as completely obscured by 
lapse of time as they are now. There is no literary Greek 
history before the age of Hekataios and Herodotos, three 
centuries subsequent to the first recorded Olympiad. A 
portion of this period is satisfactorily covered by inscrip- 
tions, but even these fail us before we get within a cent- 
ury of this earliest ascertainable date. Even the career 
of the lawgiver Lykourgos, which seems to belong to 
the commencement of the eighth century B. C, presents 
us, from lack of anything like contemporary records, 
with many insoluble problems. The Helleno-Dorian 
conquest, as we have seen, must have occurred at some 
time or other ; but it evidently did not occur within two 
centuries of the earliest known inscription, and it is 
therefore folly to imagine that we can determine its date 
or ascertain the circumstances which attended it. An- 
terior to this event there is but one fact in Greek an- 
tiquity directly known to us, — the existence of the 
Homeric poems. The belief that there was a Trojan war 
rests exclusively upon the contents of those poems : there 
is no other independent testimony to it whatever. But 
the Homeric poems are of no value as testimony to the 
truth of the statements contained in them, unless it can 
be proved that their author was either contemporary with 
the Troika, or else derived his information from contem- 
porary witnesses. This can never be proved. To assume, 
as Mr. Gladstone does, that Homer lived within fifty 



JUVENTUS MUNDI. 



1 93 



years after the Troika, is to make a purely gratuitous 
assumption. For aught the wisest historian can tell, the 
interval may have been five hundred years, or a thousand. 
Indeed the Iliad itself expressly declares that it is deal- 
ing with an ancient state of things which no longer ex- 
ists. It is difficult to see what else can be meant by the 
statement that the heroes of the Troika belong to an 
order of men no longer seen upon the earth. (Iliad, Y. 304.) 
Most assuredly Achilleus the son of Thetis, and Sarpedon 
the son of Zeus, and Helena the daughter of Zeus, are no 
ordinary mortals, such as might have been seen and con- 
versed with by the poet's grandfather. They belong to 
an inferior order of gods, according to the peculiar an- 
thropomorphism of the Greeks, in which deity and hu- 
manity are so closely mingled that it is difficult to tell 
where the one begins and the other ends. Diomedes, 
single-handed, vanquishes not only the gentle Aphrodite, 
but even the god of battles himself, the terrible Ares. 
Nestor quaffs lightly from a goblet which, we are told, 
not two men among the poet's contemporaries could by 
their united exertions raise and place upon a table. Aias 
and Hektor and Aineias hurl enormous masses of rock as 
easily as an ordinary man would throw a pebble. All this 
shows that the poet, in his naive way, conceiving of these 
heroes as personages of a remote past, was endeavouring 
as far as possible to ascribe to them the attributes of 
superior beings. If all that were divine, marvellous, or 
superhuman were to be left out of the poems, the sup- 
posed historical residue would hardly be worth the trou- 
ble of saving. As Mr. Cox well observes, "It is of the 
very essence of the narrative that Paris, who has deserted 
Oinone, the child of the stream Kebren, and before 
whom Here, Athene, and Aphrodite had appeared as 
claimants for the golden apple, steals from Sparta the 



194 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



beautiful sister of the Dioskouroi ; that the chiefs are 
summoned together for no other purpose than to avenge 
her woes and wrongs ; that Achilleus, the son of the sea- 
nymph Thetis, the wielder of invincible weapons and the 
lord of undying horses, goes to fight in a quarrel which 
is not his own ; that his wrath is roused because he is 
robbed of the maiden Briseis, and that henceforth he 
takes no part in the strife until his friend Patroklos has 
been slain ; that then he puts on the new armour which 
Thetis brings to him from the anvil of Hephaistos, and 
goes forth to win the victory. The details are throughout 
of the same nature. Achilleus sees and converses with 
Athene ; Aphrodite is wounded by Diomedes, and Sleep 
and Death bear away the lifeless Sarpedon on their 
noiseless wings to the far-off land of light." In view of 
all this it is evident that Homer was not describing, like 
a salaried historiographer, the state of things which existed 
in the time of his father or grandfather. To his mind 
the occurrences which he described were those of a re- 
mote, a wonderful, a semi-divine past. 

This conclusion, which I have thus far supported 
merely by reference to the Iliad itself, becomes irresist- 
ible as soon as we take into account the results obtained 
during the past thirty years by the science of compara- 
tive mythology. As long as our view was restricted to 
Greece, it was perhaps excusable that Achilleus and 
Paris should be taken for exaggerated copies of actual 
persons. Since the day when Grimm laid the founda- 
tions of the science of mythology, all this has been 
changed. It is now held that Achilleus and Paris and 
Helena are to be found, not only in the Iliad, but also in 
the Eig-Veda, and therefore, as mythical conceptions, 
date, not from Homer, but from a period preceding the 
dispersion of the Aryan nations. The tale of the Wrath 



JUVENTUS MUNDL 1 95 

of Achilleus, far from originating with Homer, far from 
being recorded by the author of the Iliad as by an eye- 
witness, must have been known in its essential features 
in Aryana-vaedjo, at that remote epoch when the Indian, 
the Greek, and the Teuton were as yet one and the 
same. For the story has been retained by the three races 
alike, in all its principal features ; though the Veda has 
left it in the sky where it originally belonged, while the 
Iliad and the Mbelungenlied have brought it down to 
earth, the one locating it in Asia Minor, and the other in 
Northwestern Europe.* 

* For the precise extent to which I would indorse the theory that the 
Iliad-myth is an account of the victory of light over darkness, let me refer 
to what I have said above on p. 134. I do not suppose that the struggle 
between light and darkness was Homer's subject in the Iliad any more 
than it was Shakespeare's subject in ' ' Hamlet." Homer's subject was 
the wrath of the Greek hero, as Shakespeare's subject was the vengeance 
of the Danish prince. Nevertheless, the story of Hamlet, when traced 
back to its Norse original, is unmistakably the story of the quarrel be- 
tween summer and winter ; and the moody prince is as much a solar 
hero as Odin himself. See Simrock, Die Quellen des Shakespeare, I. 
127-133. Of course Shakespeare knew nothing of this, as Homer knew 
nothing of the origin of his Achilleus. The two stories, therefore, are 
not to be taken as sun-myths in their present form. They are the off- 
spring of other stories which were sun-myths ; they are stories which 
conform to the sun-myth type after the manner above illustrated in the 
paper on Light and Darkness. [Hence there is nothing unintelligible 
in the inconsistency — which seems to puzzle Max Miiller (Science of 
Language, 6th ed. Vol. II. p. 516, note 20) — of investing Paris with 
many of the characteristics of the children of light. Supposing, as we 
must, that the primitive sense of the Iliad-myth had as entirely disap- 
peared in the Homeric age, as the primitive sense of the Hamlet-myth 
had disappeared in the times of Elizabeth, the fit ground for wonder is 
that such inconsistencies are not more numerous.] The physical theory 
of myths will be properly presented and comprehended, only when it is 
understood that we accept the physical derivation of such stories as the 
Iliad-myth in much the same way that we are bound to accept the phys- 
ical etymologies of such words as soul, consider, truth, convince, deliber- 
ate, and the like. The late Dr. Gibbs of Yale College, in his "Philo- 
logical Studies," — a little book which I used to read with delight when 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



In the Eig-Veda the Panis are the genii of night and 
winter, corresponding to the Mbelungs, or " Children of 
the Mist," in the Teutonic legend, and to the children of 
ISTephele (cloud) in the Greek myth of the Golden Fleece. 
The Panis steal the cattle of the Sun (Indra, Helios, 
Herakles), and carry them by an unknown route to a 
dark cave eastward. Sarama, the creeping Dawn, is sent 
by Indra to find and recover them. The Panis then 
tamper with Sarama, and try their best to induce her to 
betray her solar lord. For a while she is prevailed upon 
to dally with them ; yet she ultimately returns to give 
Indra the information needful in order that he might 
conquer the Panis, just as Helena, in the slightly altered 
version, ultimately returns to her western home, carry- 
ing with her the treasures (jcTr\^aTa t Iliad, II. 285) of 
which Paris had robbed Menelaos. But, before the bright 
Indra and his solar heroes can reconquer their treasures 
they must take captive the offspring of Brisaya, the 
violet light of morning. Thus Achilleus, answering to 
the solar champion Aharyu, takes captive the daughter 
of Brises. But as the sun must always be parted from 
the morning-light, to return to it again just before set- 
ting, so Achilleus loses Briseis, and regains her only just 
before his final struggle. In similar wise Herakles is 
parted from Iole ("the violet one"), and Sigurd from 
Brynhild. In sullen wrath the hero retires from the 
conflict, and his Myrmidons are no longer seen on the 
battle-field, as the sun hides behind the dark cloud and 
his rays no longer appear about him. Yet toward the 

a boy, — describes such etymologies as " faded metaphors." In similar 
wise, while refraining from characterizing the Iliad or the tragedy of 
Hamlet — any more than I would characterize Le Juif Errant by Sue, 
or La Maison Forestttre by Erckmann-Chatrian — as nature-myths, I 
would at the same time consider these poems well described as embody- 
ing "faded nature-myths." 



JUVENTUS MUNDL 



197 



evening, as Briseis returns, he appears in his might, 
clothed in the dazzling armour wrought for him by the 
fire-god Hephaistos, and with his invincible spear slays 
the great storm-cloud, which during his absence had 
wellnigh prevailed over the champions of the daylight. 
But his triumph is short-lived ; for having trampled on 
the clouds that had opposed him, while yet crimsoned 
with the fierce carnage, the sharp arrow of the night- 
demon Paris slays him at the Western Gates. We have 
not space to go into further details. In Mr. Cox's 
" Mythology of the Aryan Nations," and " Tales of An- 
cient Greece," the reader will find the entire contents of 
the Iliad and Odyssey thus minutely illustrated by com- 
parison with the Veda, the Edda, and the Lay of the 
Mbelungs. 

Ancient as the Homeric poems undoubtedly are, they 
are modern in comparison with the tale of Achilleus 
and Helena, as here unfolded. The date of the en- 
trance of the Greeks into Europe will perhaps never 
be determined ; but I do not see how any competent 
scholar can well place it at less than eight hundred 
or a thousand years before the time of Homer. Be- 
tween the two epochs the Greek, Latin, Umbrian, and 
Keltic languages had time to acquire distinct individual- 
ities. Ear earlier, therefore, than the Homeric " juventus 
mundi" was that "youth of the world," in which the 
Aryan forefathers, knowing no abstract terms, and pos- 
sessing no philosophy but fetichism, deliberately spoke 
of the Sun, and the Dawn, and the Clouds, as persons or 
as animals. The Veda, though composed much later 
than this, — perhaps as late as the Iliad, — nevertheless 
preserves the record of the mental life of this period. 
The Vedic poet is still dimly aware that Sarama is the 
fickle twilight, and the Panis the night-demons who strive 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



to coax her from her allegiance to the day-god. He 
keeps the scene of action in the sky. But the Homeric 
Greek had long since forgotten that Helena and Paris 
were anything more than semi-divine mortals, the daugh- 
ter of Zeus and the son of the Zeus-descended Priam. 
The Hindu understood that Dyaus ("the bright one") 
meant the sky, and Sarama ("the creeping one") the 
dawn, and spoke significantly when he called the latter 
the daughter of the formei. But the Greek could not 
know that Zeus was derived from a root div, " to shine," 
or that Helena belonged to a root sar, " to creep." Pho- 
netic change thus helped him to rise from fetichism to 
polytheism. His nature-gods became thoroughly anthro- 
pomorphic ; and he probably no more remembered that 
Achilleus originally signified the sun, than we remember 
that the word God, which we use to denote the most vast 
of conceptions, originally meant simply the Storm-wind. 
Indeed, when the fetichistic tendency led the Greek 
again to personify the powers of nature, he had recourse 
to new names formed from his own language. Thus, be- 
side Apollo we have Helios ; Selene beside Artemis and 
Persephone; Eos beside Athene; Gaia beside Demeter. 
As a further consequence of this decomposition and new 
development of the old Aryan mythology, we find, as 
might be expected, that the Homeric poems are not 
always consistent in their use of their mythic materials. 
Thus, Paris, the night-demon, is — to Max Miiller's per- 
plexity — invested with many of the attributes of the 
bright solar heroes. " Like Perseus, Oidipous, Eomulus, 
and Cyrus, he is doomed to bring ruin on his parents ; 
like them he is exposed in his infancy on the hillside, 
and rescued by a shepherd." All the solar heroes begin 
life in this way. Whether, like Apollo, born of the 
dark night (Leto), or like Oidipous, of the violet dawn 



JUVENTUS MUNDL 



199 



(Iokaste), they are alike destined to bring destruction on 
their parents, as the night and the dawn are both de- 
stroyed by the sun. The exposure of the child in infancy 
represents the long rays of the morning-sun resting on 
the hillside. Then Paris forsakes Oinone ("the wine- 
coloured one"), but meets her again at the gloaming 
when she lays herself by his side amid the crimson 
flames of the funeral pyre. Sarpedon also, a solar hero, 
is made to fight on the side of the Mblungs or Trojans, 
attended by his friend Glaukos ("the brilliant one"). 
They command the Lykians, or " children of light " ; and 
with them comes also Memnon, son of the Dawn, from 
the fiery land of the Aithiopes, the favourite haunt of 
Zeus and the gods of Olympos. 

The Iliad-myth must therefore have been current 
many ages before the Greeks inhabited Greece, long be- 
fore there was any Ilion to be conquered. Nevertheless, 
this does not forbid the supposition that the legend, as 
we have it, may have been formed by the crystallization 
of mythical conceptions about a nucleus of genuine 
tradition. In this view I am upheld by a most sagacious 
and accurate scholar, Mr. E. A. Freeman, who finds in 
Carlovingian romance an excellent illustration of the 
problem before us. 

The Charlemagne of romance is a mythical personage. 
He is supposed to have been a Frenchman, at a time 
when neither the French nation nor the French language 
can properly be said to have existed ; and he is repre- 
sented as a doughty crusader, although crusading was 
not thought of until long after the Karolingian era. The 
legendary deeds of Charlemagne are not conformed to 
the ordinary rules of geography and chronology. He is 
a myth, and, what is more, he is a solar myth, — an 
avatar, or at least a representative, of Odin in his solar 



200 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



capacity. If in his case legend were not controlled and 
rectified by history, he would be for us as unreal as 
Agamemnon. 

History, however, tells us that there was an Emperor 
Karl, German in race, name, and language, who was one 
of the two or three greatest men of action that the world 
has ever seen, and who in the ninth century ruled over all 
Western Europe. To the historic Karl corresponds in 
many particulars the mythical Charlemagne. The legend 
has preserved the fact, which without the information 
supplied by history we might perhaps set down as a 
fiction, that there was a time when Germany, Gaul, Italy, 
and part of Spain formed a single empire. And, as Mr. 
Freeman has well observed, the mythical crusades of 
Charlemagne are good evidence that there were crusades, 
although the real Karl had nothing whatever to do with 
one. 

Now the case of Agamemnon may be much like that 
of Charlemagne, except that we no longer have history 
to help us in rectifying the legend. The Iliad preserves 
the tradition of a time when a large portion of the islands 
and mainland of Greece were at least partially subject 
to a common suzerain ; and, as Mr. Ereeman has again 
shrewdly suggested, the assignment of a place like 
Mykenai, instead of Athens or Sparta or Argos, as the 
seat of the suzerainty, is strong evidence of the trust- 
worthiness of the tradition. It appears to show that the 
legend was constrained by some remembered fact, instead 
of being guided by general probability. Charlemagne's 
seat of government has been transferred in romance from 
Aachen to Paris ; had it really been at Pari?,, says Mr. 
Freeman, no one would have thought of transferring it to 
Aachen. Moreover, the story of Agamemnon, though 
uncontrolled by historic records, is here at least sup- 



JUVENTUS MUNDI. 



201 



ported by archseologic remains, which prcwe Mykenai to 
have been at some time or other a place of great con- 
sequence. Then, as to the Trojan war, we know that the 
Greeks several times crossed the iEgaean and colonized 
a large part of the seacoast of Asia Minor. In order to 
do this it was necessary to oust from their homes many 
warlike communities of Lydians and Bithynians, and we 
may be sure that this was not done without prolonged 
fighting. There may very probably have been now and 
then a levy en masse in prehistoric Greece, as there was 
in mediseval Europe ; and whether the great suzerain at 
Mykenai ever attended one or not, legend would be sure 
to send him on such an expedition, as it afterwards sent 
Charlemagne on a crusade. 

It is therefore quite possible that Agamemnon and 
Menelaos may represent dimly remembered sovereigns or 
heroes, with their characters and actions distorted to suit 
the exigencies of a narrative founded upon a solar myth. 
The character of the Nibelungenlied here well illustrates 
that of the Iliad. Siegfried and Brunhild, Hagen and 
Gunther, seem to be mere personifications of physical 
phenomena ; but Etzel and Dietrich are none other than 
Attila and Theodoric surrounded with mythical attri- 
butes; and even the conception of Brunhild has been 
supposed to contain elements derived from the traditional 
recollection of the historical Brunehault. When, therefore, 
Achiileus is said, like a true sun-god, to have died by a 
wound from a sharp instrument in the only vulnerable 
part of his body, we may reply that the legendary Char- 
lemagne conducts himself in many respects like a solar 
deity. If Odysseus detained by Kalypso represents the 
sun ensnared and held captive by the pale goddess of 
night, the legend of Frederic Barbarossa asleep in a 
Thuringian mountain embodies a portion of a kindred 

9* 



202 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



conception. We know that Charlemagne and Frederic 
have been substituted for Odin ; we may suspect that 
with the mythical impersonations of Achilleus and Odys- 
seus some traditional figures may be blended. We should 
remember that in early times the solar-myth was a sort 
of type after which all wonderful stories would be pat- 
terned, and that to such a type tradition also would be 
made to conform. 

In suggesting this view, we are not opening the door to 
Euhemerism. If there is any one conclusion concern- 
ing the Homeric poems which the labours of a whole 
generation of scholars may be said to have satisfactorily 
established, it is this, that no trustworthy history can be 
obtained from either the Iliad or the Odyssey merely by 
sifting out the mythical element. Even if the poems 
contain the faint reminiscence of an actual event, that 
event is inextricably wrapped up in mythical phraseology, 
so that by no cunning of the scholar can it be construed 
into history. In view of this it is quite useless for Mr. 
Gladstone to attempt to base historical conclusions upon 
the fact that Helena is always called " Argive Helen," or 
to draw ethnological inferences from the circumstances 
that Menelaos, Achilleus, and the rest of the Greek heroes, 
have yellow hair, while the Trojans are never so described. 
The Argos of the myth is not the city of Peloponnesos, 
though doubtless so construed even in Homer's time. It 
is " the bright land " where Zeus resides, and the epithet 
is applied to his wife Here and his daughter Helena, as 
well as to the dog of Odysseus, who reappears with Sara- 
meyas in the Veda. As for yellow hair, there is no evi- 
dence that Greeks have ever commonly possessed it ; but 
no other colour would do for a solar hero, and it accord- 
ingly characterizes the entire company of them, wherever 
found, while for the Trojans, or children of night, it is 
not required. 



JUVENTUS MUNBL 



203 



A wider acquaintance with the results which have been 
obtained during the past thirty years by the comparative 
study of languages and mythologies would have led Mr. 
Gladstone to reconsider many of his views concerning 
the Homeric poems, and might perhaps have led him to 
cut out half or two thirds of his book as hopelessly 
antiquated. The chapter on the divinities of Olympos 
would certainly have had to be rewritten, and the ridic- 
ulous theory of a primeval revelation abandoned. One 
can hardly preserve one's gravity when Mr. Gladstone 
derives Apollo from the Hebrew Messiah, and Athene 
from the Logos. To accredit Homer with an acquaintance 
with the doctrine of the Logos, which did not exist until 
the time of Philo, and did not receive its authorized 
Christian form until the middle of the second century 
after Christ, is certainly a strange proceeding. We shall 
next perhaps be invited to believe that the authors of 
the Yolsunga Saga obtained the conception of Sigurd 
from the " Thirty-Mne Articles." It is true that these 
deities, Athene and Apollo, are wiser, purer, and more 
dignified, on the whole, than any of the other divinities 
of the Homeric Olympos. They alone, as Mr. Gladstone 
truly observes, are never deceived or frustrated. For all 
Hellas, Apollo was the interpreter of futurity, and in the 
maid Athene we have perhaps the highest conception of 
deity to which the Greek mind had attained in the early 
times. In the Veda, Athene is nothing but the dawn; 
but in the Greek mythology, while the merely sensuous 
glories of daybreak are assigned to Eos, Athene becomes 
the impersonation of the illuminating and knowledge- 
giving light of the sky. As the dawn, she is daughter 
of Zeus, the sky, and in mythic language springs from 
his forehead; but, according to the Greek conception, 
this imagery signifies that she shares, more than any 



204 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



other deity, in the boundless wisdom of Zeus. The 
knowledge of Apollo, on the other hand, is the peculiar 
privilege of the sun, who, from his lofty position, sees 
everything that takes place upon the earth. Even the 
secondary divinity Helios possesses this prerogative to a 
certain extent. 

Next to a Hebrew, Mr. Gladstone prefers a Phoenician 
ancestry for the Greek divinities. But the same lack of 
acquaintance with the old Aryan mythology vitiates all 
his conclusions. No doubt the Greek mythology is in 
some particulars tinged with Phoenician conceptions. 
Aphrodite was originally a purely Greek divinity, but in 
course of time she acquired some of the attributes of the 
Semitic Astarte, and was hardly improved by the change. 
Adonis is simply a Semitic divinity, imported into Greece. 
But the same cannot be proved of Poseidon ; * far less 
of Hermes, who is identical with the Yedic Sarameyas, 
the rising wind, the son of Sarama the dawn, the lying, 
tricksome wind-god, who invented music, and conducts 
the souls of dead men to the house of Hades, even as his 
counterpart the Norse Odin rushes over the tree-tops 
leading the host of the departed. When one sees Iris, 
the messenger of Zeus, referred to a Hebrew original, 
because of Jehovah's promise to Noah, one is at a loss to 
understand the relationship between the two conceptions. 
Nothing could be more natural to the Greeks than to call 

* I have no opinion as to the nationality of the Earth-shaker, and, 
regarding the etymology of his name, I believe we can hardly do better 
than acknowledge, with Mr. Cox, that it is unknown. It may well be 
doubted, however, whether much good is likely to come of comparisons 
between Poseidon, Dagon, Oannes, and Noah, or of distinctions between 
the children of Shem and the children of Ham. See Brown's Poseidon ; 
a Link between Semite, Hamite, and Aryan, London, 1872, — a book 
which is open to several of the criticisms here directed against Mr. Glad- 
stone's manner of theorizing. 



JUVENTUS MUNDL 



205 



the rainbow the messenger of the sky-god to earth-dwell- 
ing men ; to call it a token set in the sky by Jehovah, as 
the Hebrews did, was a very different thing. We may 
admit the very close resemblance between the myth of 
Bellerophon and Anteia, and that of Joseph and Zuleikha ; 
but the fact that the Greek story is explicable from Aryan 
antecedents, while the Hebrew story is isolated, might 
perhaps suggest the inference that the Hebrews were the 
borrowers, as they undoubtedly were in the case of the 
myth of Eden. Lastly, to conclude that Helios is an 
Eastern deity, because he reigns in the East over Thrina- 
kia, is wholly unwarranted. Is not Helios pure Greek for 
the sun ? and where should his sacred island be placed, 
if not in the East ? As for his oxen, which wrought such 
dire destruction to the comrades of Odysseus, and which 
seem to Mr. Gladstone so anomalous, they are those very 
same unhappy cattle, the clouds, which were stolen by 
the storm-demon Cacus and the wind-deity Hermes, and 
which furnished endless material for legends to the poets 
of the Yeda. 

But the whole subject of comparative mythology seems 
to be terra incognita to Mr. Gladstone. He pursues the 
even tenour of his way in utter disregard of Grimm, and 
Kuhn, and Breal, and Dasent, and Burnouf. He takes 
no note of the Eig-Veda, nor does he seem to realize that 
there was ever a time when the ancestors of the Greeks 
and Hindus worshipped the same gods. Two or three 
times he cites Max Muller, but makes no use of the 
copious data which might be gathered from him. The 
only work which seems really to have attracted his at- 
tention is M. Jacolliot's very discreditable performance 
called "The Bible in India." Mr. Gladstone does not, 
indeed, unreservedly approve of this book ; but neither 
does he appear to suspect that it is a disgraceful piece of 



206 



MYTHS AXD MYTH-MAKERS. 



charlatanry, written by a man ignorant of the very rudi- 
ments of the subject which he professes to handle. 

Mr. Gladstone is equally out of his depth when he 
comes to treat purely philological questions. Of the 
science of philology, as based upon established laws of 
phonetic change, he seems to have no knowledge what- 
ever. He seems to think that two words are sufficiently 
proved to be connected when they are seen to resemble 
each other in spelling or in sound. Thus he quotes approv- 
ingly a derivation of the name Tliemis from an assumed 
verb them, " to speak," whereas it is notoriously derived 
from tIOtj/m, as statute comes ultimately from stare. His 
reference of hieros, " a priest," and geron, " an old man," 
to the same root, is utterly baseless ; the one is the San- 
skrit ishiras, " a powerful man," the other is the Sanskrit 
jaran, " an old man." The lists of words on pages 96 - 
100 are disfigured by many such errors ; and indeed the 
whole purpose for which they are given shows how sadly 
Mr. Gladstone's philology is in arrears. The theory of 
Mebuhr — that the words common to Greek and Latin, 
mostly descriptive of peaceful occupations, are Pelasgian 
— was serviceable enough in its day, but is now rendered 
wholly antiquated by the discovery that such words are 
Aryan, in the widest sense. The Pelasgian theory works 
very smoothly so long as we only compare the Greek 
with the Latin words, — as, for instance, £uydv with ju- 
gum ; but when we add the English yoke and the San- 
skrit yugam, it is evident that we have got far out of the 
range of the Pelasgoi. But what shall we say when we 
find Mr. Gladstone citing the Latin thalamus in sup- 
port of this antiquated theory ? Doubtless the word tha- 
lamus is, or should be, significative of peaceful occupa- 
tions ; but it is not a Latin word at all, except by 
adoption. One might as well cite the word ensemble to 



JUVENTUS MUNDI. 



207 



prove the original identity or kinship between English 
and French. 

When Mr. Gladstone, leaving the dangerous ground of 
pure and applied philology, confines himself to illustrat- 
ing the contents of the Homeric poems, he is always ex- 
cellent. His chapter on the " Outer Geography " of the 
Odyssey is exceedingly interesting ; showing as it does 
how much may be obtained from the patient and atten- 
tive study of even a single author. Mr. Gladstone's 
knowledge of the surface of the Iliad and Odyssey, so 
to speak, is extensive and accurate. It is when he 
attempts to penetrate beneath the surface and survey the 
treasures hidden in the bowels of the earth, that he 
shows himself unprovided with the talisman of the wise 
dervise, which alone can unlock those mysteries. But 
modern philology is an exacting science : to approach its 
higher problems requires an amount of preparation suf- 
ficient to terrify at the outset all but the boldest ; and a 
man who has had to regulate taxation, and make out 
financial statements, and lead a political party in a great 
nation, may well be excused for ignorance of philology. 
It is difficult enough for those who have little else to do 
but to pore over treatises on phonetics, and thumb their 
lexicons, to keep fully abreast with the latest views in 
linguistics. In matters of detail one can hardly ever 
broach a new hypothesis without misgivings lest some- 
body, in some weekly journal published in Germany, 
may just have anticipated and refuted it. Yet while Mr. 
Gladstone may be excused for being unsound in philol- 
ogy, it is far less excusable that he should sit down to 
write a book about Homer, abounding in philological 
statements, without the slightest knowledge of what has 
been achieved in that science for several years past. In 
spite of all drawbacks, however, his book shows an abid- 



208 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



ing taste for scholarly pursuits, and therefore deserves a 
certain kind of praise. I hope, — though just now the 
idea savours of the ludicrous, — that the day may some 
time arrive when our Congressmen and Secretaries of the 
Treasury will spend their vacations in writing books 
about Greek antiquities, or in illustrating the meaning 
of Homeric phrases. 



July, 1870. 



TUB PRIMEVAL GHOST-WORLD. 



209 



VII. 

THE PRIMEVAL GHOST-WOKLD. 

NO earnest student of human culture can as yet have 
forgotten or wholly outlived the feeling of delight 
awak3ned by the first perusal of Max Muller's brilliant 
" Essay on Comparative Mythology," — a work in which 
the scientific principles of myth-interpretation, though 
not newly announced, were at least brought home to the 
reader with such an amount of fresh and striking con- 
crete illustration as they had not before received. Yet 
it must have occurred to more than one reader that, while 
the analyses of myths contained in this noble essay are 
in the main sound in principle and correct in detail, 
nevertheless the author's theory of the genesis of myth 
is expressed, and most likely conceived, in a way that is 
very suggestive of carelessness and fallacy. There are 
obvious reasons for doubting whether the existence of 
mythology can be due to any " disease," abnormity, or 
hypertrophy of metaphor in language ; and the criticism 
at once arises, that with the myth-makers it was not so 
much the character of the expression which originated the 
thought, as it was the thought which gave character to the 
expression. It is not that the early Aryans were myth- 
makers because their language abounded in metaphor ; it 
is that the Aryan mother-tongue abounded in metaphor 
because the men and women who spoke it were myth- 
makers. And they were myth-makers because they had 
nothing but the phenomena of human will and effort 
with which to compare objective phenomena. Therefore 

N 



2IO 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



it was that they spoke of the sun as an unwearied voy- 
ager or a matchless archer, and classified inanimate no 
less than animate objects as masculine and feminine. 
Max Muller's way of stating his theory, both in this Essay 
and in his later Lectures, affords one among several in- 
stances of the curious manner in which he combines a 
marvellous penetration into the significance of details with 
a certain looseness of general conception.* The princi- 
ples of philological interpretation are an indispensable 
aid to us in detecting the hidden meaning of many a 
legend in which the powers of nature are represented in 
the guise of living and thinking persons ; but before we can 
get at the secret of the myth-making tendency itself, we 
must leave philology and enter upon a psychological 
study. We must inquire into the characteristics of that 
primitive style of thinking to which it seemed quite 
natural that the sun should be an unerring archer, and 
the thunder-cloud a black demon or gigantic robber find- 

* "The expression that the Erinys, Saranyu, the Dawn, finds out the 
criminal, was originally quite free from mythology ; it meant no more, 
than that crime would he brought to light some day or other. It became 
mythological, however, as soon as the etymological meaning of Erinys 
was forgotten, and as soon as the Dawn, a portion of time, assumed the 
rank of a personal being." — Science of Language, 6th edition, II. 615. 
This paragraph, in which the italicizing is mine, contains Max Muller's 
theory in a nutshell. It seems to me wholly at variance with the facts 
of history. The facts concerning primitive culture which are to be cited 
in this paper will show that the case is just the other way. Instead of 
the expression " Erinys finds the criminal" being originally a metaphor, 
it was originally a literal statement of what was believed to be fact. 
The Dawn (not "a portion of time," (!) but the rosy flush of the morn- 
ing sky) was originally regarded as a real person. Primitive men, strictly 
speaking, do not talk in metaphors ; they believe in the literal truth of 
their similes and personifications, from which, by survival in culture, our 
poetic metaphors are lineally descended. Homer's allusion to a rolling 
stone as itraifiepos or " yearning" (to keep on rolling), is to us a mere 
figurative expression ; but to the savage it is the description of a fact. 



THE PRIMEVAL GHOST-WORLD. 



211 



ing his richly merited doom at the hands of the indignant 
Lord of Light. 

Amono: recent treatises which have dealt with this 
interesting problem, we shall find it advantageous to 
give especial attention to Mr. Tylor's "Primitive Cult- 
ure," * one of the few erudite works which are at once 
truly great and thoroughly entertaining. The learning 
displayed in it would do credit to a German specialist, 
both for extent and for minuteness, while the orderly ar- 
rangement of the arguments and the elegant lucidity of 
the style are such as we are accustomed to expect from 
French essay- writers. And what is still more admirable 
is the way in which the enthusiasm characteristic of 
a genial and original speculator is tempered by the 
patience and caution of a cool-headed critic. Patience 
and caution are nowhere more needed than in writers 
who deal with mythology and with primitive religious 
ideas ; but these qualities are too seldom found in com- 
bination with the speculative boldness which is required 
when fresh theories are to be framed or new paths of 
investigation opened. The state of mind in which the 
explaining powers of a favourite theory are fondly con- 
templated is, to some extent, antagonistic to the state of 
mind in which facts are seen, with the eye of impartial 
criticism, in all their obstinate and uncompromising real- 
ity. To be able to preserve the balance between the two 
opposing tendencies is to give evidence of the most con- 
summate scientific training. It is from the want of such 
a balance that the recent great work of Mr. Cox is at 
times so unsatisfactory. It may, I fear, seem ill-natured 
to say so, but the eagerness with which Mr. Cox waylays 

* Primitive Culture : Eesearches into the Development of Mythology, 
Philosophy, Eeligion, Art, and Custom. By Edward B. Tylor. 2 vols, 
8vo. London. 1871. 



212 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



every available illustration of the physical theory of the 
origin of myths has now and then the curious effect of 
weakening the reader's conviction of the soundness of 
the theory. For my own part, though by no means in- 
clined to waver in adherence to a doctrine once adopted 
on good grounds, I never felt so much like rebelling 
against the mythologic supremacy of the Sun and the 
Dawn as when reading Mr. Cox's volumes. That Mr. 
Tylor, while defending the same fundamental theory, 
awakens no such rebellious feelings, is due to his clear 
perception and realization of the fact that it is impossible 
to generalize in a single formula such many-sided corre- 
spondences as those which primitive poetry and philosophy 
have discerned between the life of man and the life of 
outward nature. Whoso goes roaming up and down the 
elf-land of popular fancies, with sole intent to resolve 
each episode of myth into some answering physical event, 
his only criterion being outward resemblance, cannot be 
trusted in his conclusions, since wherever he turns for 
evidence he is sure to find something that can be made 
to serve as such. As Mr. Tylor observes, no household 
legend or nursery rhyme is safe from his hermeneutics. 
"Should he, for instance, demand as his property the 
nursery 'Song of Sixpence,' his claim would be easily 
established, — obviously the four-and-twenty blackbirds 
are the four-and-twenty hours, and the pie that holds 
them is the underlying earth covered with the overarch- 
ing sky, — how true a touch of nature it is that when the 
pie is opened, that is, when day breaks, the birds begin 
to sing ; the King is the Sun, and his counting out his 
money is pouring out the sunshine, the golden shower of 
Danae; the Queen is the Moon, and her transparent 
honey the moonlight ; the Maid is the c rosy-fingered ' 
Dawn, who rises before the Sun, her master, and hangs 



THE PRIMEVAL GHOST-WORLD. 



213 



out the clouds, his clothes, across the sky ; the particular 
blackbird, who so tragically ends the tale by snipping off 
her nose, is the hour of sunrise." In all this interpreta- 
tion there is no a priori improbability, save, perhaps, in 
its unbroken symmetry and completeness. That some 
points, at least, of the story are thus derived from antique 
interpretations of physical events, is in harmony with all 
that we know concerning nursery rhymes. In short, " the 
time-honoured rhyme really wants but one thing to 
prove it a sun-myth, that one thing being a proof by 
some argument more valid than analogy." The character 
of the argument which is lacking may be illustrated by 
a reference to the rhyme about Jack and Jill, explained 
some time since in the paper on " The Origins of Folk- 
Lore." If the argument be thought valid which shows 
these ill-fated children to be the spots on the moon, it is 
because the proof consists, not in the analogy, which is 
in this case not especially obvious, but in the fact that 
in the Edda, and among ignorant Swedish peasants of 
our own day, the story of Jack and Jill is actually given 
as an explanation of the moon-spots. To the neglect of 
this distinction between what is plausible and what is 
supported by direct evidence, is due much of the crude 
speculation which encumbers the study of myths. 

It is when Mr. Tylor merges the study of mythology 
into the wider inquiry into the characteristic features of 
the mode of thinking in which myths originated, that we 
can best appreciate the practical value of that union of 
speculative boldness and critical sobriety which every- 
where distinguishes him. It is pleasant to meet with a 
writer who can treat of primitive religious ideas without 
losing his head over allegory and symbolism, and who 
duly realizes the fact that a savage is not a rabbinical 
commentator, or a cabalist, or a Eosicrucian, but a plain 



214 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



man who draws conclusions like ourselves, though with 
feeble intelligence and scanty knowledge. The mystic 
allegory with which such modern writers as Lord Bacon 
have invested the myths of antiquity is no part of their 
original clothing, but is rather the late product of a style 
of reasoning from analogy quite similar to that which we 
shall perceive to have guided the myth-makers in their 
primitive constructions. The myths and customs and 
beliefs which, in an advanced stage of culture, seem 
meaningless save when characterized by some quaintly 
wrought device of symbolic explanation, did not seem 
meaningless in the lower culture which gave birth to 
them. Myths, like words, survive their primitive mean- 
ings. In the early stage the myth is part and parcel of 
the current mode of philosophizing ; the explanation 
which it offers is, for the time, the natural one, the one 
which would most readily occur to any one thinking on 
the theme with which the myth is concerned. But by 
and by the mode of philosophizing has changed ; expla- 
nations which formerly seemed quite obvious no longer 
occur to any one, but the myth has acquired an indepen- 
dent substantive existence, and continues to be handed 
down from parents to children as something true, though 
no one can tell why it is true. Lastly, the myth itself 
gradually fades from remembrance, often leaving behind 
it some utterly unintelligible custom or seemingly absurd 
superstitious notion. For example, — to recur to an illus- 
tration already cited in a previous paper, — it is still 
believed here and there by some venerable granny that it 
is wicked to kill robins; but he who should attribute 
the belief to the old granny's refined sympathy with all 
sentient existence, would be making one of the blun- 
ders which are always committed by those who reason 
a priori about historical matters without following the 



THE PRIMEVAL GHOST-WORLD. 21$ 



historical method. At an earlier date the superstition 
existed in the shape of a belief that the killing of a 
robin portends some calamity ; in a still earlier form the 
calamity is specified as death ; and again, still earlier, as 
death by lightning. Another step backward reveals that 
the dread sanctity of the robin is owing to the fact that 
he is the bird of Thor, the lightning god ; and finally we 
reach that primitive stage of philosophizing in which the 
lightning is explained as a red bird dropping from its 
beak a worm which cleaveth the rocks. Again, the belief 
that some harm is sure to come to him who saves the life 
of a drowning man, is unintelligible until it is regarded 
•as a case of survival in culture. In the older form of the 
superstition it is held that the rescuer will sooner or later 
be drowned himself ; and thus we pass to the fetichistic 
interpretation of drowning as the seizing of the unfortu- 
nate person by the water-spirit or nixy, who is naturally 
angry at being deprived of his victim, and henceforth 
bears a special grudge against the bold mortal who has 
thus dared to frustrate him. 

The interpretation of the lightning as a red bird, and 
of drowning as the work of a smiling but treacherous 
fiend, are parts of that primitive philosophy of nature in 
which all forces objectively existing are conceived as 
identical with the force subjectively known as volition. 
It is this philosophy, currently known as fetichism, but 
treated by Mr. Tylor under the somewhat more compre- 
hensive name of " animism," which we must now consider 
in a few of its most conspicuous exemplifications. When 
we have properly characterized some of the processes 
which the untrained mind habitually goes through, we 
shall have incidentally arrived at a fair solution of the 
genesis of mythology. 

Let us first note the ease with which the barbaric or 



216 



MFTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



uncultivated mind reaches all manner of apparently fan- 
ciful conclusions through reckless reasoning from analogy. 
It is through the operation of certain laws of ideal as- 
sociation that all human thinking, that of the highest as 
well as that of the lowest minds, is conducted : the dis- 
covery of the law of gravitation, as well as the invention 
of such a superstition as the Hand of Glory, is at bottom 
but a case of association of ideas. The difference between 
the scientific and the mythologic inference consists solely 
in the number of checks which in the former case combine 
to prevent any other than the true conclusion from being 
framed into a proposition to which the mind assents. 
Countless accumulated experiences have taught the modern 
that there are many associations of ideas which do not 
correspond to any actual connection of cause and effect in 
the world of phenomena ; and he has learned accordingly 
to apply to his newly framed notions the rigid test of ver- 
ification. Besides which the same accumulation of ex- 
periences has built up an organized structure of ideal asso- 
ciations into which only the less extravagant newly framed 
notions have any chance of fitting. The primitive man, or 
the modern savage who is to some extent his counterpart, 
must reason without the aid of these multifarious checks. 
That immense mass of associations which answer to what 
are called physical laws, and which in the mind of the 
civilized modern have become almost organic, have not 
been formed in the mind of the savage ; nor has he 
learned the necessity of experimentally testing any of 
his newly framed notions, save perhaps a few of the 
commonest. Consequently there is nothing but super- 
ficial analogy to guide the course of his thought hither 
or thither, and the conclusions at which he arrives will 
be determined by associations of ideas occurring appar- 
ently at haphazard. Hence the quaint or grotesque fan- 



THE PRIMEVAL GHOST-WORLD. 



217 



cies with which European and barbaric folk-lore is filled, 
in the framing of which the myth-maker was but reason- 
ing according to the best methods at his command. To 
this simplest class, in which the association of ideas is 
determined by mere analogy, belong such cases as that 
of the Zulu, who chews a piece of wood in order to soften 
the heart of the man with whom he is about to trade 
for cows, or the Hessian lad who " thinks he may escape 
the conscription by carrying a baby-girl's cap in his 
pocket, — a symbolic way of repudiating manhood." * 
A similar style of thinking underlies the mediaeval 
necromancer's practice of making a waxen image of his 
enemy and shooting at it with arrows, in order to bring 
about the enemy's death ; as also the case of the magic 
rod, mentioned in a previous paper, by means of which 
a sound thrashing can be administered to an absent foe 
through the medium of an old coat which is imagined to 
cover him. The principle involved here is one which is 
doubtless familiar to most children, and is closely akin to 
that which Irving so amusingly illustrates in his doughty 
general who struts through a field of cabbages or corn- 
stalks, smiting them to earth with his cane, and 
imagining himself a hero of chivalry conquering single- 
handed a host of caitiff ruffians. Of like origin are the 
fancies that the breaking of a mirror heralds a death in 
the family, — probably because of the destruction of the 
reflected human image ; that the " hair of the dog that 
bit you" will prevent hydrophobia if laid upon the 
wound ; or that the tears shed by human victims, sacri- 
ficed to mother earth, will bring down showers upon the 
land. Mr. Tylor cites Lord Chesterfield's remark, " that 
the king had been ill, and that people generally expected 
the illness to be fatal, because the oldest lion in the 

* Tylor, op. cit. L 107. 

10 



218 



MYTHS AXD MYTH-MAKERS. 



Tower, about the kings age, had just died. 'So wild 
and capricious is the human mind,' " observes the elegant 
letter-writer. But indeed, as Mr. Tylor justly remarks, 
" the thought was neither wild nor capricious ; it was 
simply such an argument from analogy as the educated 
world has at length painfully learned to be worthless, but 
which, it is not too much to declare, would to this day 
carry considerable weight to the minds of four fifths of the 
human race." Upon such symbolism are based most of 
the practices of divination and the great pseudo-science 
of astrology. " It is an old story, that when two brothers 
were once taken ill together, Hippokrates, the physician, 
concluded from the coincidence that they were twins, but 
Poseiclonios, the astrologer, considered rather that they 
were born under the same constellation; we may add 
that either argument would be thought reasonable by a 
savage." So when a Maori fortress is attacked, the be- 
siegers and besieged look to see if Yenus is near the 
moon. The moon represents the fortress; and if it 
appears below the companion planet, the besiegers will 
carry the day, otherwise they will be repulsed. Equally 
primitive and childlike was Eousseau's train of thought 
on the memorable day at Les Charmettes when, being 
distressed with doubts as to the safety of his soul, he 
sought to determine the point by throwing a stone at a 
tree. " Hit, sign of salvation ; miss, sign of damnation ! " 
The tree being a large one and very near at hand, the 
result of the experiment was reassuring, and the young 
philosopher walked away without further misgivings con- 
cerning this momentous question.* 

"When the savage, whose highest intellectual efforts 
result only in speculations of this childlike character, is 

* Rousseau, Confessions, I. vi. For farther illustration, see especially 
the note on the "doctrine of signatures," supra, p. 55. 



THE PRIMEVAL GHOST-WORLD. 



219 



confronted with the phenomena of dreams, it is easy to 
see what he will make of them. His practical knowledge 
of psychology is too limited to admit of his distinguish- 
ing between the solidity of waking experience and what 
we may call the unsubstantialness of the dream. He 
may, indeed, have learned that the dream is not to be 
relied on for telling the truth ; the Zulu, for example, 
has even reached the perverse triumph of critical logic 
achieved by our own Aryan ancestors in the saying that 
" dreams go by contraries." But the Zulu has not learned, 
nor had the primeval Aryan learned, to disregard the 
utterances of the dream as being purely subjective phe- 
nomena. To the mind as yet untouched by modern cult- 
ure, the visions seen and the voices heard in sleep possess 
as much objective reality as the gestures and shouts of 
waking hours. When the savage relates his dream, he 
tells how he saw certain dogs, dead warriors, or demons 
last night, the implication being that the things seen 
were objects external to himself. As Mr. Spencer ob- 
serves, "his rude language fails to state the difference 
between seeing and dreaming that he saw, doing and 
dreaming that he did. From this inadequacy of his 
language it not only results that he cannot truly represent 
this difference to others, but also that he cannot truly 
represent it to himself. Hence in the absence of an 
alternative interpretation, his belief, and that of those to 
whom he tells his adventures, is that his other self has 
been away and came back when he awoke. And this 
belief, which we find among various existing savage 
tribes, we equally find in the traditions of the early 
civilized races." * 

Let us consider, for a moment, this assumption of the 

* Spencer, Eecent Discussions in Science, etc., p. 36, "The Origin of 
Animal "Worship." 



220 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



other self, for upon this is based the great mass of crude 
inference which constitutes the primitive man's philoso- 
phy of nature. The hypothesis of the other self, which 
serves to account for the savage's wanderings during 
sleep in strange lands and among strange people, serves 
also to account for the presence in his dreams of parents, 
comrades, or enemies, known to be dead and buried. The 
other self of the dreamer meets and converses with the 
other selves of his dead brethren, joins with them in the 
hunt, or sits down with them to the wild cannibal ban- 
quet. Thus arises the belief in an ever-present world of 
souls or ghosts, a belief which the entire experience of 
uncivilized man goes to strengthen and expand. The 
existence of some tribe or tribes of savages wholly desti- 
tute of religious belief has often been hastily asserted 
and as often called in question. But there is no question 
that, while many savages are unable to frame a concep- 
tion so general as that of godhood, on the other hand no 
tribe has ever been found so low in the scale of intel- 
ligence as not to have framed the conception of ghosts or 
spiritual personalities, capable of being angered, propi- 
tiated, or conjured with. Indeed it is not improbable 
a priori that the original inference involved in the notion 
of the other self may be sufficiently simple and obvious 
to fall within the capacity of animals even less intel- 
ligent than uncivilized man. An authentic case is on 
record of a Skye terrier who, being accustomed to obtain 
favours from his master by sitting on his haunches, will 
also sit before his pet india-rubber ball placed on the 
chimney-piece, evidently beseeching it to jump down 
and play with him.* Such a fact as this is quite in 

* See Nature, Vol. VI. p. 262, August 1, 1872. The circumstances 
narrated are such as to exclude the supposition that the sitting up is in- 
tended to attract the master's attention. The dog has frequently beea 



THE PRIMEVAL GHOST-WORLD. 



221 



harmony with Auguste Comte's suggestion that such in- 
telligent animals as dogs, apes, and elephants may be 
capable of forming a few fetichistic notions. The be- 
haviour of the terrier here rests upon the assumption 
that the ball is open to the same sort of entreaty which 
prevails with the master ; which implies, not that the 
wistful brute accredits the ball with a soul, but that in 
his mind the distinction between life pud inanimate 
existence has never been thoroughly established. Just 
this confusion between things living and things not liv- 
ing is present throughout the whole philosophy of feti- 
chism ; and the confusion between things seen and things 
dreamed, which suggests the notion of another self, be- 
longs to this same twilight stage of intelligence in which 
primeval man has not yet clearly demonstrated his im- 
measurable superiority to the brutes.* 

seen trying to soften the heart of the ball, while observed unawares by 
his master. 

* "We would, however, commend to Mr. Fiske's attention Mr. Mark 
Twain's dog, who ' could n't be depended on for a special providence,' 
as being nearer to the actual dog of every-day life than is the Skye ter- 
rier mentioned by a certain correspondent of Nature, to whose letter 
Mr. Fiske refers. The terrier is held to have had ' a few fetichistic no- 
tions,' because he was found standing up on his hind legs in front of a 
mantel-piece, upon which lay an india-rubber ball with which he wished 
to play, but which he could not reach, and which, says the letter- writer, 
he was evidently beseeching to come down and play with him. We 
consider it more reasonable to suppose that a dog who had been drilled 
into a belief that standing upon his hind legs was very pleasing to his 
master, and who, therefore, had accustomed himself to stand on his 
hind legs whenever he desired anything, and whose usual way of get- 
ting what he desired was to induce somebody to get it for him, may 
have stood up in front of the mantel-piece rather from force of habit and 
eagerness of desire than because he had any fetichistic notions, or ex- 
pected the india-rubber ball to listen to his supplications. We admit, 
however, to avoid polemical controversy, that in matter of religion the 
dog is capable of anything." The Nation, Vol. XV. p. 284, October 
1, 1872. To be sure, I do not know for certain what was going on in 



222 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



The conception of a soul or other self, capable of going 
away from the body and returning to it, receives decisive 
confirmation from the phenomena of fainting, trance, 
catalepsy, and ecstasy,* which occur less rarely among 
savages, owing to their irregular mode of life, than 
among civilized men. "Further verification," observes 
Mr. Spencer, " is afforded by every epileptic subject, into 
whose body, during the absence of the other self, some 
enemy has entered ; for how else does it happen that the 
other self on returning denies all knowledge of what his 
body has been doing ? And this supposition, that the 
body has been ' possessed ' by some other being, is con- 
firmed by the phenomena of somnambulism and insan- 

the dog's mind ; and so, letting both explanations stand, I will only add 
another fact of similar import. "The tendency in savages to imagine 
that natural objects and agencies are animated by spiritual or living 
essences is perhaps illustrated by a little fact which I once noticed : 
my dog, a full-grown and very sensible animal, was lying on the lawn 
during a hot and still day ; but at a little distance a slight breeze occa- 
sionally moved an open parasol, which would have been wholly disre- 
garded by the dog, had any one stood near it. As it was, every time 
that the parasol slightly moved, the dog growled fiercely and barked. 
He must, I think, have reasoned to himself, in a rapid and unconscious 
manner, that movement without any apparent cause indicated the pres- 
ence of some strange living agent, and no stranger had a right to be on 
his territory." Darwin, Descent of Man, Vol. T. p. 64. Without in- 
sisting upon all the details of this explanation, one may readily grant, I 
think, that in the dog, as in the savage, there is an undisturbed associ- 
ation between motion and a living motor agency ; and that out of a 
multitude of just such associations common to both, the savage, with his 
greater generalizing power, frames a truly fetichistic conception. 

* Note the fetichism wrapped up in the etymologies of these Greek 
words. Catalepsy, /cardA^i/as, a seizing of the body by some spirit or 
demon, who holds it rigid. Ecstasy, ^Kcrraais, a displacement or re- 
moval of the soul from the body, into which the demon enters and 
causes strange laughing, crying, or contortions. It is not metaphor, 
but the literal belief in a ghost-world, which has given rise to such 
words as these, and to such expressions as ' ' a man beside himself or 
transported. " 



THE PRIMEVAL GHOST-WORLD. 22$ 



ity." Still further, as Mr. Spencer points out, when we 
recollect that savages are very generally unwilling to 
have their portraits taken, lest a portion of themselves 
should get carried off and be exposed to foul play,* we 

* Something akin to the savage's belief in the animation of pictures 
may be seen in young children. I have often been asked by my three- 
year-old boy, whether the dog in a certain picture would bite him if he 
were to go near it ; and I can remember that, in my own childhood, 
when reading a book about insects, which had the formidable likeness 
of a spider stamped on the centre of the cover, I was always uneasy lest 
my finger should come in contact with the dreaded thing as I held the 
book. 

With the savage's unwillingness to have his portrait taken, lest it fall 
into the hands of some enemy who may injure him by conjuring with 
it, may be compared the reluctance which he often shows toward telling 
his name, or mentioning the name of his friend, or king, or tutelar 
ghost-deity. In fetichistic thought, the name is an entity mysteriously 
associated with its owner, and it is not well to run the risk of its get- 
ting into hostile hands. Along with this caution goes the similarly 
originated fear that the person whose name is spoken may resent such 
meddling with his personality. For the latter reason the Dayak will 
not allude by name to the small-pox, but will call it "the chief" or 
"jungle-leaves" ; the Laplander speaks of the bear as the "old man 
with the fur coat" ; in Annam the tiger is called "grandfather" or 
" Lord " ; while in more civilized communities such sayings are current 
as "talk of the Devil, and he will appear," with which we may also 
compare such expressions as "Eurnenides " or "gracious ones " for the 
Furies, and other like euphemisms. Indeed, the maxim nil mortuis 
nisi bonum had most likely at one time a fetichistic flavour. 

In various islands of the Pacific, for both the reasons above specified, the 
name of the reigning chief is so rigorously "tabu," that common words 
and even syllables resembling that name in sound must be omitted from 
the language. In New Zealand, where a chief s name was Maripi, or 
"knife," it became necessary to call knives nekra ; and in Tahiti, fetu, 
"star," had to be changed into fetia, and tui, "to strike," became tiai, 
etc., because the king's name was Tu. Curious freaks are played with 
the languages of these islands by this ever-recurring necessity. Among 
the Kafirs the women have come to speak a different dialect from the 
men, because words resembling the names of their lords or male rela- 
tives are in like manner "tabu." The student of human culture will 
trace among such primeval notions the origin of the Jew's unwillingness 



224 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



must readily admit that the weird reflection of the person 
and imitation of the gestures in rivers or still woodland 
pools will go far to intensify the belief in the other self. 
Less frequent but uniform confirmation is to be found in 
echoes, which in Europe within two centuries have been 
commonly interpreted as the voices of mocking fiends or 
wood-nymphs, and which the savage might well regard 
as the utterances of his other self. 

Chamisso's well-known tale of Peter Schlemihl belongs 
to a widely diffused family of legends, which show that a 
man's shadow has been generally regarded not only as an 
entity, but as a sort of spiritual attendant of the body, 
which under certain circumstances it may permanently 
forsake. It is in strict accordance with this idea that 
not only in the classic languages, but in various barbaric 
tongues, the word for " shadow " expresses also the soul 
or other self. Tasmanians, Algonquins, Central- Ameri- 
cans, Abipones, Basutos, and Zulus are cited by Mr. Tylor 
as thus implicitly asserting the identity of the shadow 
with the ghost or phantasm seen in dreams ; the Basutos 
going so far as to think "that if a man walks on the 
river-bank, a crocodile may seize his shadow in the water 
and draw him in." Among the Algonquins a sick person 
is supposed to have his shadow or other self temporarily 
detached from his body, and the convalescent is at times 
" reproached for exposing himself before his shadow was 
safely settled down in him." If the sick man has been 

to pronounce the name of Jehovah. ; and hence we may perhaps have 
before us the ultimate source of the horror with which the Hebraizing 
Puritan regards such forms of light swearing — "Mon Dieu," etc. — 
as are still tolerated on the continent of Europe, but have disappeared 
from good society in Puritanic England and America. The reader in- 
terested in this group of ideas and customs may consult Tylor, Early 
History of Mankind, pp. 142, 363 ; Max Miiller, Science of Language, 
6th edition, Yol. II. p. 37 ; Mackay, Religious Development of the 
Greeks and Hebrews, Yol. I. p. 146. 



THE PRIMEVAL GHOST-WORLD. 22$ 



plunged into stupor, it is because his other self has 
travelled away as far as the brink of the river of death, 
but not being allowed to cross has come back and re- 
entered him. And acting upon a similar notion the ail- 
ing Fiji will sometimes lie down and raise a hue and cry 
for his soul to be brought back. Thus, continues Mr. 
Tylor, "in various countries the bringing back of lost 
souls becomes a regular part of the sorcerer's or priest's 
profession." * On Aryan soil we find the notion of a 
temporary departure of the soul surviving to a late date 
in the theory that the witch may attend the infernal Sab- 
bath while her earthly tabernacle is quietly sleeping at 
home. The primeval conception reappears, clothed in 
bitterest sarcasm, in Dante's reference to his living con- 
temporaries whose souls he met with in the vaults of 
hell, while their bodies were still walking about on the 
earth, inhabited by devils. 

The theory which identifies the soul with the shadow, 
and supposes the shadow to depart with the sickness and 
death of the body, would seem liable to be attended with 
some difficulties in the way of verification, even to the 
dim intelligence of the savage. But the propriety of 
identifying soul and breath is borne out by all primeval 
experience. The breath, which really quits the body at 
its decease, has furnished the chief name for the soul, 
not only to the Hebrew, the Sanskrit, and the classic 
tongues ; not only to German and English, where geist, 
and ghost, according to Max Mtiller, have the meaning of 
"breath," and are akin to such words as gas, gust, and 
geyser ; but also to numerous barbaric languages. Among 

* Tylor, Primitive Culture, I. 394. "The Zulus hold that a dead 
body can cast no shadow, because that appurtenance departed from it at 
the close of life." Hardwick, Traditions, Superstitions, and Folk-Lore, 
p. 123. 

10* O 



226 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



the natives of Nicaragua and California, in Java and in 
West Australia, the soul is described as the air or breeze 
which passes in and out through the nostrils and mouth ; 
and the Greenlanders, according to Cranz, reckon two 
separate souls, the breath and the shadow. " Among the 
Seminoles of Florida, when a woman died in childbirth, 
the infant was held over her face to receive her parting 
spirit, and thus acquire strength and knowledge for iU 

future use Their state of mind is kept up to this 

day among Tyrolese peasants, who can still fancy a good 
man's soul to issue from his mouth at death like a little 
white cloud." * It is kept up, too, in Lancashire, where a 
well-known witch died a few years since ; " but before she 
could ' shuffle off this mortal coil ' she must needs trans- 
fer her familiar spirit to some trusty successor. An in- 
timate acquaintance from a neighbouring township was 
consequently sent for in all haste, and on her arrival was 
immediately closeted with her dying friend. What 
passed between them has never fully transpired, but it is 
confidently affirmed that at the close of the interview 
this associate received the witch's last breath into her mouth 
and with it her familiar spirit. The dreaded woman 
thus ceased to exist, but her powers for good or evil were 
transferred to her companion ; and on passing along the 
road from Burnley to Blackburn we can point out a farm- 
house at no great distance with whose thrifty matron no 
neighbouring farmer will yet dare to quarrel." \ 

Of the theory of embodiment there will be occasion to 
speak further on. At present let us not pass over the 
fact that the other self is not only conceived as shadow 
or breath, which can at times quit the body during life, 
but is also supposed to become temporarily embodied in 

* Tylor, op. cit. I. 391. 

t Harland and Wilkinson, Lancashire Folk-Lore, 1867, p. 210. 



THE PRIMEVAL GHOST-WORLD. 



227 



the visible form of some bird or beast. In discussing 
elsewhere the myth of Bishop Hatto, we saw that the 
soul is sometimes represented in the form of a rat or 
mouse ; and in treating of werewolves we noticed the 
belief that the spirits of dead ancestors, borne along in 
the night- wind, have taken on the semblance of howling 
dogs or wolves. " Consistent with these quaint ideas are 
ceremonies in vogue in China of bringing home in a 
cock (live or artificial) the spirit of a man deceased in a 
distant place, and of enticing into a sick man's coat the 
departing spirit which has already left his body and so 
conveying it back." * In CastreVs great work on Fin- 
nish mythology, we find the story of the giant who could 
not be killed because he kept his soul hidden in a twelve- 
headed snake which he carried in a bag as he rode on 
horseback ; only when the secret was discovered and the 
snake carefully killed, did the giant yield up his life. In 
this Finnish legend we have one of the thousand phases of 
the story of the " Giant who had no Heart in his Body," but 
whose heart was concealed, for safe keeping, in a duck's 
egg, or in a pigeon, carefully disposed in some belfry at the 
world's end a million miles away, or encased in a well- 
nigh infinite series of Chinese boxes.*)* Since, in spite 
of all these precautions, the poor giant's heart invariably 
came to grief, we need not wonder at the Karen super- 
stition that the soul is in danger when it quits the body 

* Tylor, op. cit. II. 139. 

+ In Eussia the souls of the dead are supposed to be embodied in 
pigeons or crows. "Thus when the Deacon Theodore and his three 
schismatic brethren were burnt in 1681, the souls of the martyrs, as the 
' Old Believers ' affirm, appeared in the air as pigeons. In Volhynia 
dead children are supposed to come back in the spring to their native 
village under the semblance of swallows and other small birds, and to 
seek by soft twittering or song to console their sorrowing parents." 
Ealston, Songs of the Kussian People, p. 118. 



228 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



on its excursions, as exemplified in countless Indo-Euro- 
pean stories of the accidental killing of the weird mouse 
or pigeon which embodies the wandering spirit. Con- 
versely it is heid that the detachment of the other self 
is fraught with danger to the self which remains. In the 
philosophy of "wraiths" and "fetches," the appearance 
of a double, like that which troubled Mistress Affery in 
her waking dreams of Mr. Flintwinch, has been from 
time out of mind a signal of alarm. " In New Zealand 
it is ominous to see the figure of an absent person, for if 
it be shadowy and the face not visible, his death may 
erelong be expected, but if the face be seen he is dead 
already. A party of Maoris (one of whom told the 
story) were seated round a fire in the open air, when 
there appeared, seen only by two of them, the figure of a 
relative, left ill at home ; they exclaimed, the figure van- 
ished, and on the return of the party it appeared that the 
sick man had died about the time of the vision." * The 
belief in wraiths has survived into modern times, and now 
and then appears in the records of that remnant of pri- 
meval philosophy known as " spiritualism," as, for exam- 
ple, in the case of the lady who " thought she saw her 
own father look in at the church-window at the moment 
he was dying in his own house." 

The belief in the " death-fetch," like the doctrine 
which identifies soul with shadow, is instructive as show- 
ing that in barbaric thought the other self is supposed to 
resemble the material self with which it has customarily 
been associated. In various savage superstitions the min- 
ute resemblance of soul to body is forcibly stated. The 
Australian, for instance, not content with slaying his ene- 
my, cuts off the right thumb of the corpse, so that the de- 
parted soul may be incapacitated from throwing a spear. 

* Tylor, op. cit. I. 404. 



THE PRIMEVAL GHOST-WORLD. 



Even the half-civilized Chinese prefer crucifixion to de- 
capitation, that their souls may not wander headless 
about the spirit- world.* Thus we see how far removed 
from the Christian doctrine of souls is the primeval theory 
of the soul or other self that figures in dreamland. So 
grossly materialistic is the primitive conception that the 
savage who cherishes it will bore holes in the coffin of 
his dead friend, so that the soul may again have a chance, 
if it likes, to revisit the body. To this day, among the 
peasants in some parts of Northern Europe, when Odin, 
the spectral hunter, rides by attended by his furious host, 
the windows in every sick-room are opened, in order 
that the soul, if it chooses to depart, may not be hindered 
from joining in the headlong chase. And so, adds Mr. 
Tylor, after the Indians of North America had spent a 
riotous night in singeing an unfortunate captive to death 
with firebrands, they would howl like the fiends they 
were, and beat the air with brushwood, to drive away the 
distressed and revengeful ghost. " With a kindlier feeling^ 
the Congo negroes abstained for a whole year after a death 
from sweeping the house, lest the dust should injure the 
delicate substance of the ghost " ; and even now, " it re- 
mains a German peasant saying that it is wrong to slam 
a door, lest one should pinch a soul in it." \ Dante's ex- 
perience with the ghosts in hell and purgatory, who were 
astonished at his weighing down the boat in which they 
were carried, is belied by the sweet German notion " that 
the dead mother's coming back in the night to suckle the 

* Tylor, op. cit. I. 407. 

+ Tylor, op. cit. I. 410. In the next stage of survival this belief 
will take the shape that it is wrong to slam a door, no reason "being as- 
signed ; and in the succeeding stage, when the child asks why it is naughty 
to slam a door, he will be told, because it is an evidence of bad temper. 
Thus do old-world fancies disappear before the inroads of the practical 
sense. 



230 MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 

baby she lias left on earth may be known by the hollow 
pressed down in the bed where she lay." Almost univer- 
sally ghosts, however impervious to thrust of sword or 
shot of pistol, can eat and drink like Squire Westerns. 
And lastly, we have the grotesque conception of souls 
sufficiently material to be killed over again, as in the 
case of the negro widows who, wishing to marry a second 
time, will go and duck themselves in the pond, in order 
to drown the souls of their departed husbands, which are 
supposed to cling about their necks ; while, according to 
the Fiji theory, the ghost of every dead warrior must go 
through a terrible fight with Samu and his brethren, in 
which, if he succeeds, he will enter Paradise, but if he 
fails he will be killed over again and finally eaten by the 
dreaded Samu and his unearthly company. 

From the conception of souls embodied in beast-forms, 
as above illustrated, it is not a wide step to the concep- 
tion of beast-souls which, like human souls, survive the 
death of the tangible body. The wide-spread supersti- 
tions concerning werewolves and swan-maidens, and the 
hardly less general belief in metempsychosis, show that 
primitive culture has not arrived at the distinction at- 
tained by modern philosophy between the immortal man 
and the soulless brute. Still more direct evidence is fur- 
nished by sundry savage customs. The Kafir who has 
killed an elephant will cry that he did n't mean to do it, 
and, lest the elephant's soul should still seek vengeance, 
he will cut off and bury the trunk, so that the mighty 
beast may go crippled to the spirit-land. In like manner, 
the Samoyeds, after shooting a bear, will gather about 
the body offering excuses and laying the blame on the 
Kussians ; and the American redskin will even put the 
pipe of peace into the dead animal's mouth, and beseech 
him to forgive the deed. In Assam it is believed that 



THE PRIMEVAL GHOST-WORLD. 23 1 



the ghosts of slain animals will become in the next world 
the property of the hunter who kills them ; and the 
Kamtchadales expressly declare that all animals, even 
flies and bngs, will live after death, — a belief, which, in 
our own day, has been indorsed on philosophical grounds 
by an eminent living naturalist.* The Greenlanders, too, 
give evidence of the same belief by supposing that when 
after an exhausting fever the patient comes up in unpre- 
cedented health and vigour, it is because he has lost his 
former soul and had it replaced by that of a young child 
or a reindeer. In a recent work in which the crudest 
fancies of primeval savagery are thinly disguised in a 
jargon learned from the superficial reading of modern 
books of science, M. Figuier maintains that human souls 
are for the most part the surviving souls of deceased ani- 
mals ; in general, the souls of precocious musical children 
like Mozart come from nightingales, while the souls of 
great architects have passed into them from beavers, etc., 
etc. f 

The practice of begging pardon of the animal one has 
just slain is in some parts of the world extended to the 
case of plants. When the Talein offers a prayer to the 
tree which he is about to cut down, it is obviously be- 
cause he regards the tree as endowed with a soul or ghost 
which in the next life may need to be propitiated. And 
the doctrine of transmigration distinctly includes plants 
along with animals among the future existences into 
which the human soul may pass. 

As plants, like animals, manifest phenomena of life, 
though to a much less conspicuous degree, it is not in- 
comprehensible that the savage should attribute souls to 
them. But the primitive process of anthropomorphisa- 

* Agassiz, Essay on Classification, pp. 97 - 99. 
+ Figuier, The To-morrow of Death, p. 247. 



232 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



tion does not end here. Not only the horse and dog, the 
bamboo, and the oak-tree, but even lifeless objects, such 
as the hatchet, or bow and arrows, or food and drink of 
the dead man, possess other selves which pass into the 
world of ghosts. Fijis and other contemporary savages, 
when questioned, expressly declare that this is their be- 
lief. " If an axe or a chisel is worn out or broken up, 
away flies its soul for the service of the gods." The 
Algonquins told Charlevoix that since hatchets and ket- 
tles have shadows, no less than men and women, it fol- 
lows, of course, that these shadows (or souls) must pass 
along with human shadows (or souls) into the spirit-land. 
In this we see how simple and consistent is the logic 
which guides the savage, and how inevitable is the genesis 
of the great mass of beliefs, to our minds so arbitrary 
and grotesque, which prevail throughout the barbaric 
world. However absurd the belief that pots and kettles 
have souls may seem to us, it is nevertheless the only 
belief which can be held consistently by the savage to 
whom pots and kettles, no less than human friends or 
enemies, may appear in his dreams ; who sees them fol- 
lowed by shadows as they are moved about ; who hears 
their voices, dull or ringing, when they are struck ; and 
who watches their doubles fantastically dancing in the 
water as they are carried across the stream.* To minds, 
even in civilized countries, which are unused to the 
severe training of science, no stronger evidence can be 
alleged than what is called " the evidence of the senses " ; 
for it is only long familiarity with science which teaches 

* Here, as usually, the doctrine of metempsychosis comes in to com- 
plete the proof. " Mr. Darwin saw two Malay women in Keeling Island, 
who had a wooden spoon dressed in clothes like a doll ; this spoon had 
been carried to the grave of a dead man, and becoming inspired at full 
moon, in fact lunatic, it danced about convulsively like a table or a hat 
at a modern spirit -stance. " Tylor, op. cit. II. 139. 



THE PRIMEVAL GHOST-WORLD. 



us that the evidence of the senses is trustworthy only in 
so far as it is correctly interpreted by reason. For the 
truth of his belief in the ghosts of men and beasts, trees 
and axes, the savage has undeniably the evidence of his 
senses which have so often seen, heard, and handled 
these other selves. 

The funeral ceremonies of uncultured races freshly 
illustrate this crude philosophy, and receive fresh illus- 
tration from it. On the primitive belief in the ghostly 
survival of persons and objects rests the almost universal 
custom of sacrificing the wives, servants, horses, and dogs 
of the departed chief of the tribe, as well as of presenting 
at his shrine sacred offerings of food, ornaments, weapons, 
and money. Among the Kayans the slaves who are killed 
at their master's tomb are enjoined to take great care of 
their master's ghost, to wash and shampoo it, and to nurse 
it when sick. Other savages think that " all whom they 
kill in this world shall attend them as slaves after death," 
and for this reason the thrifty Dayaks of Borneo until 
lately would not allow their young men to marry until 
they had acquired some post mortem property by procur- 
ing at least one human head. It is hardly necessary to 
do more than allude to the Fiji custom of strangling all 
the wives of the deceased at his funeral, or to the equally 
well-known Hindu rite of suttee. Though, as Wilson 
has shown, the latter rite is not supported by any genuine 
Vedic authority, but only by a shameless Brahmanic cor- 
ruption of the sacred text, Mr. Tylor is nevertheless quite 
right in arguing that unless the horrible custom had re- 
ceived the sanction of a public opinion bequeathed from 
pre- Vedic times, the Brahmans would have had no motive 
for fraudulently reviving it ; and this opinion is virtually 
established by the fact of the prevalence of widow sacri- 
fice among Gauls, Scandinavians, Slaves, and other Euro- 



234 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



pean Aryans.* Though under English rule the rite has 
been forcibly suppressed, yet the archaic sentiments 
which so long maintained it are not yet extinct. Within 
the present year there has appeared in the newspapers a 
not improbable story of a beautiful and accomplished 
Hindu lady who, having become the wife of a wealthy 
Englishman, and after living several years in England 
amid the influences of modern society, nevertheless went 
off and privately burned herself to death soon after her 
husband's decease. 

The reader who thinks it far-fetched to interpret funeral 
offerings of food, weapons, ornaments, or money, on the 
theory of object-souls, will probably suggest that such 
offerings may be mere memorials of affection or esteem 
for the dead man. Such, indeed, they have come to be 
in many countries after surviving the phase of culture in 
which they originated ; but there is ample evidence to 
show that at the outset they were presented in the belief 
that their ghosts would be eaten or otherwise employed 
by the ghost of the dead man. The stout club which is 
buried with the dead Fiji sends its soul along with him 
that he may be able to defend himself against the hostile 
ghosts which will lie in ambush for him on the road to 
Mbulu, seeking to kill and eat him. Sometimes the club 
is afterwards removed from the grave as of no further use, 
since its ghost is all that the dead man needs. In like 
manner, " as the Greeks gave the dead man the obolus 
for Charon's toll, and the old Prussians furnished him 
with spending money, to buy refreshment on his weary 
journey, so to this day German peasants bury a corpse 
with money in his mouth or hand," and this is also said 
to be one of the regular ceremonies of an Irish wake. 
Of similar purport were the funeral feasts and oblations 

* Tylor, op. cit. I. 414-422. 



THE PRIMEVAL GHOST-WORLD. 235 



of food in Greece and Italy, the " rice-cakes made with 
ghee " destined for the Hindu sojourning in Yama's king- 
* dom, and the meat and gruel offered by the Chinaman to 
the manes of his ancestors. " Many travellers have de- 
scribed the imagination with which the Chinese make 
such offerings. It is that the spirits of the dead consume 
the impalpable essence of the food, leaving behind its 
coarse material substance, wherefore the dutiful sacrificers, 
having set out sumptuous feasts for ancestral souls, allow 
them a proper time to satisfy their appetite, and then 
fall to themselves." * So in the Homeric sacrifice to the 
gods, after the deity has smelled the sweet savour and 
consumed the curling steam that rises ghost-like from 
the roasting viands, the assembled warriors devour the 
remains." ■(• 

Thus far the course of fetichistic thought which we 
have traced out, with Mr. Tylor's aid, is such as is not 
always obvious to the modern inquirer without consider- 
able concrete illustration. The remainder of the process, 
resulting in that systematic and complete anthropomor- 
phisation of nature which has given rise to mythology, 
may be more succinctly described. Gathering together 
the conclusions already obtained, we find that daily or 
frequent experience of the phenomena of shadows and 
dreams has combined with less frequent experience of the 
phenomena of trance, ecstasy, and insanity, to generate 
in the mind of uncultured man the notion of a twofold 
existence appertaining alike to all animate or inanimate 
objects : as all alike possess material bodies, so all alike 
possess ghosts or souls. JSTow when the theory of object- 
souls is expanded into a general doctrine of spirits, the 

* Tylor, op. cit. I. 435, 446 ; II. 30, 36. 

+ According to the Karens, blindness occurs when the soul of tlie eye 
is eaten by demons. Id., II. 353. 



236 MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 

philosophic scheme of animism is completed. Once ha- 
bituated to the conception of souls of knives and tobacco- 
pipes passing to the land of ghosts, the savage cannot avoid 
carrying the interpretation still further, so that wind and 
water, fire and storm, are accredited with indwelling 
spirits akin by nature to the soul which inhabits the 
human frame. That the mighty spirit or demon by whose 
impelling will the trees are rooted up and the storm- 
clouds driven across the sky should resemble a freed 
human soul, is a natural inference, since uncultured man 
has not attained to the conception of physical force act- 
ing in accordance with uniform methods, and hence all 
events are to his mind the manifestations of capricious 
volition. If the fire burns down his hut, it is because the 
fire is a person with a soul, and is angry with him, and 
needs to be coaxed into a kindlier mood by means of 
prayer or sacrifice. Thus the savage has a priori no 
alternative but to regard fire-soul as something akin to 
human-soul; and in point of fact we find that savage 
philosophy makes no distinction between the human 
ghost and the elemental demon or deity. This is suffi- 
ciently proved by the universal prevalence of the worship 
of ancestors. The essential principle of manes-worship 
is that the tribal chief or patriarch, who has governed the 
community during life, continues also to govern it after 
death, assisting it in its warfare with hostile tribes, 
rewarding brave warriors, and punishing traitors and 
cowards. Thus from the conception of the living king 
we pass to the notion of what Mr. Spencer calls " the 
god-king," and thence to the rudimentary notion of deity. 
Among such higher savages as the Zulus, the doctrine of 
divine ancestors has been developed to the extent of rec- 
ognizing a first ancestor, the Great Father, Unkulunkulu, 
who made the world. But in the stratum of savage 



THE PRIMEVAL GHOST-WORLD. 



237 



thought in which barbaric or Aryan folk-lore is for the 
most part based, we find no such exalted speculation. 
The ancestors of the rude Veddas and of the Guinea 
negroes, the Hindu pitris (patres, "fathers"), and the 
Eoman manes have become elemental deities which send 
rain or sunshine, health or sickness, plenty or famine, and 
to which their living offspring appeal for guidance amid 
the vicissitudes of life * The theory of embodiment, 
already alluded to, shows how thoroughly the demons 
which cause disease are identified with human and object 
souls. In Australasia it is a dead man's ghost which 
creeps up into the liver of the impious wretch who has 
ventured to pronounce his name ; while conversely in the 
well-known European theory of demoniacal possession, 
it is a fairy from elf-land, or an imp from hell, which has 
entered the body of the sufferer. In the close kinship, 
moreover, between disease-possession and oracle-posses- 
sion, where the body of the Pythia, or the medicine-man, 
is placed under the direct control of some great deity ,f 

* The following citation is interesting as an illustration of the direct- 
ness of descent from heathen manes-worship to Christian saint-worship : 
" It is well known that Romulus, mindful of his own adventurous in- 
fancy, became after death a Roman deity, propitious to the health and 
safety of young children, so that nurses and mothers would carry sickly 
infants to present them in his little round temple at the foot of the Pal- 
atine. In after ages the temple was replaced by the church of St. Theo- 
doras, and there Dr. Conyers Middleton, who drew public attention to 
its curious history, used to look in and see ten or a dozen women, each 
with a sick child in her lap, sitting in silent reverence before the altar of 
the saint. The ceremony of blessing children, especially after vaccina- 
tion, may still be seen there on Thursday mornings." Op. cit. II. 111. 

+ "Want of space prevents me from remarking at length upon Mr. 
Tylor's admirable treatment of the phenomena of oracular inspiration. 
Attention should be called, however, to the brilliant explanation of the 
importance accorded by all religions to the rite of fasting. Prolonged 
abstinence from food tends to bring on a mental state which is favour- 
able to visions. The savage priest or medicine-man qualities himself for 



238 



MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS. 



we may see how by insensible transitions the conception 
of the human ghost passes into tne conception of the 
spiritual numen, or divinity. 

To pursue this line of inquiry through the countless 
nymphs and dryads and nixies of the higher nature- wor- 
ship up to the Olympian divinities of classic polytheism, 
would be to enter upon the history of religious belief, and 
in so doing to lose sight of our present purpose, which has 
merely been to show by what mental process the myth- 
maker can speak of natural objects in language which 
implies that they are animated persons. Brief as our 
account of this process has been, I believe that enough has 
been said, not only to reveal the inadequacy of purely 
philological solutions (like those contained in Max Miil- 
ler's famous Essay) to explain the growth of myths, but 
also to exhibit the vast importance for this purpose of 
the kind of psychological inquiry into the mental habits 
of savages which Mr. Tylor has so ably conducted. 
Indeed, however lacking we may still be in points of de- 
tail, I think we have already reached a very satisfactory 
explanation of the genesis of mythology. Since the essen- 
tial characteristic of a myth is that it is an attempt to 
explain some natural phenomenon by endowing with 
human feelings and capacities the senseless factors in the 
phenomenon, and since it has here been shown how un- 
cultured man, by the best use he can make of his rude 
common sense, must inevitably come, and has invariably 
come, to regard all objects as endowed with souls, and all . 
nature as peopled with supra-human entities shaped after 
the general pattern of the human soul, I am inclined to 
suspect that we have got very near to the root of the 

the performance of his duties by fasting, and where this is not sufficient, 
often uses intoxicating drugs ; whence the sacredness of the hasheesh, as 
also of the Yedic soma-juice. The practice of fasting among civilized 
peoples is an instance of survival. 



THE PRIMEVAL GHOST-WORLD. 239 



whole matter. We can certainly find no difficulty in 
seeing why a water-spout should be described in the 
" Arabian Nights " as a living demon : " The sea became 
troubled before them, and there arose from it a black 
pillar, ascending towards the sky, and approaching the 
meadow, .... and behold it was a Jinni, of gigantic stat- 
ure." We can see why the Moslem camel-driver should 
find it most natural to regard the whirling simoom as a 
malignant Jinni ; we may understand how it is that the 
Persian sees in bodily shape the scarlet fever as " a 
blushing maid with locks of flame and cheeks all rosy 
red " ; and we need not consider it strange that the pri- 
meval Aryan should have regarded the sun as a voyager, a 
climber, or an archer, and the clouds as cows driven by 
the wind-god Hermes to their milking. The identifica- 
tion of William Tell with the sun becomes thoroughly 
intelligible ; nor can we be longer surprised at the con- 
ception of the howling night-wind as a ravenous wolf. 
When pots and kettles are thought to have souls that 
live hereafter, there is no difficulty in understanding how 
the blue sky can have been regarded as the sire of gods 
and men. And thus, as the elves and bogarts of popular 
lore are in many cases descended from ancient divinities 
of Olympos and Valhalla, so these in turn must acknowl- 
edge their ancestors in the shadowy denizens of the prime- 
val ghost- world. 



August, 1872. 



NOTE. 



The following are some of the modern works most likely to be of use 
to the reader who is interested in the legend of William Tell. 

Hisely, J. J. Dissertatio historica inauguralis de Gulielmo Tellio, 

etc. Groningfe, 1824. 
Ideler, J. L. Die Sage von dem Schuss des Tell. Berlin, 1836. 
Hausser, L. Die Sage voni Tell auf s Neue kritisch untersucht. Hei- 
delberg, 1840. 

Hisely, J. J. Recherches critiques sur l'histoire de Guillaume Tell. 
Lausanne, 1843. 

Liebenau, H. Die Tell-Sage zu dem Jahre 1230 historiseh nach 
neuesten Quellen. Aarau, 1864. 

Vischer, W. Die Sage von der Befreiung der Waldstatte, etc. 
Nebst einer Beilage : das alteste Tellenschauspiel. Leipzig, 1867. 

Bordier, H. L. Le Griitli et Guillaume Tell, ou defense de la tra- 
dition vulgaire sur les origines de la confederation suisse. Geneve 
et Bale, 1869. 

The same. La querelle sur les traditions concernant l'origine de la 
confederation suisse. Geneve et Bale, 1869. 

Rilliet, A. Les origines de la confederation suisse : histoire et 
legende. 2 e ed., revue et corrigee. Geneve et Bale, 1869. 

The same. Lettre a M. Henri Bordier a propos de sa defense de la 
tradition vulgaire sur les origines de la confederation suisse. Gen- 
eve et Bale, 1869. 

Hungerbuhler, H. Etude critique sur les traditions relatives aux 
origines de la confederation suisse. Geneve et Bale, 1869. 

Meyer, Karl. Die Tellsage. [In Bartsch, Germanistisehe Studien, 
1.159-170.] Wien, 1872. 

See also the articles by M. Seherer, in Le Temps, 18 Feb., 1868 ; 
by M. Reuss, in the Revue critique d'histoire, 1868 ; by M. de Wiss, in 
the Journal de Geneve, 7 July, 1868 ; also Revue critique, 17 July, 
1869 ; Journal de Geneve, 24 Oct., 1868 ; Gazette de Lausanne, feuille- 
ton litteraire, 2-5 Nov., 1868, "Les origines de la confederation 
suisse," par M. Secretan ; Edinburgh Review, Jan., 1869, " The Legend 
of Tell and Riitli." 



INDEX 



A. 

Abgott, 105. 
Achaians, 180. 

Achilleis, Mr. Grote's theory of, 187. 

Achilleus, 20, 24, 112, 187, seq. 

Adeva, 121. 

Aditi, 104, 110. 

Adonis, 25, 204. 

Agamemnon, 19, 187, seq., 200. 

Agassiz, his belief in the immortality 

of lower animals, 231. 
Agni, 110. 
Ahana, 20. 

Aharyu, 20, 121, 196. 
Ahi, 58, 114, 118. 

Ahmed and the Peri Banou, 30, 43, 49. 

Ahriman, 121. 

Ahuramazda, 121. 

Aias, 193. 

Aineias, 193. 

Aithiopes, 199. 

Aladdin's ring, 45 ; his request for a 
roc's egg to hang in the dome of his 
palace, 50. 

Aleian land, 50. 

Alexandrian library, 15. 

Alexikakos, 117. 

Allegorical interpretations of myths 

inadequate, 21, 214. 
Ambrosia, 63. 

American culture-myths, 152 ; sun- 
catcher - myth, 170 ; tortoise - myth, 
172. 

Amrita, 63. 

Analogical reasoning among savages, 

examples of, 217. 
Animism, 215. 
Anro-mainyas, 121. 



Anteia, 205. 
Antigone, 115. 
Antiquity of man, 176. 
Antwerp, 71. 

Aphrodite, 18, 28, 30, 190, 204. 
Apollo and the Messiah, 203. 
Apsaras, 96. 

Arabian Nights, 11, 13, 36, 43, 50, 99, 

111, 239. 
Argive as an epithet, 202. 
Argonauts, 133. 
Arkadians, 73. 
Arktos, 73. 
Armida's gardens, 30. 
Artemis, 18, 28, 190. 
Aryan immigration into Europe, 197. 
Ash-tree dreaded by venomous snakes, 

61. 

Ass delivered from enchantment by 
old coat, 101. 

Association of ideas variously illus- 
trated in scientific and in barbaric 
thought, 216. 

Astarte, 25, 204. 

Astyages, 114. 

Athene, 20 ; compared by Mr. Glad- 
stone to the Logos, 203. 
Auerbach's cellar, 124. 
Autolykos, 71. 
Aymar, Jacques, 38, 40. 
Azidahaka, 114. 

B. 

Baba Abdallah, 43. 
Babel, 72. 
Baga, 104. 

Bagaios, epithet of Zeus, 104. 
Balder, 25. 



244 



INDEX. 



Banier, Abbe, 15. 

Barbaric and Aryan myths, 149. 

Barbarossa, 26, 201. 

Baring-Gould, 7, 17, 26, 29, 40, 43, 51, 

80, seq. 
Bazra, 71. 
Belisarius, 15. 
Bellerophon, 19, 205. 
Benaiab the son of Jehoiada, 43. 
Berserkir madness, 79, 89. 
Beth-Gellert, 7. 
Bhaga, 104. 

Bishop Hatto, 34, 72, 227. 
Blue-beard, 60. 
Boabdil, 26. 
Bog, Bogie, 104. 

Boots, 9 ; his eating-match with the 

Troll, 131. 
Brahman and goat, 12. 
Breal, Michel, 116. 
Bridge of souls, 48. 
Bridge of the dead, 151. 
Brisaya, 20, 196. 
Briseis, 20, 196. 
Brunehault, 201. 
Brynhild, 132. 

Bug-a-boo and Bugbear, 104. 
Byrsa, 71. 

c. 

Cacus, 117, 121. 
Csecius, 117, 121. 

Cannibalism, abnormal : tailor of 
Chalons, 81 ; beggar of Polomyia, 
82 ; Jean Grenier, 83 ; Jacques 
Eoulet, 84. 

Cannibals (in Zulu folk-lore) and 
Trolls, 165. 

Cardinal points, 160. 

Carib lightning-myth, 169. 

Carvara, 20, 124. 

Cassim Baba, 43. 

Cat- woman, 91. 

Catalepsy, 78, 222. 

Catequil the thunder-god, 65. 

Cattle of Helios, 116, 119. 

Celestinus and the Miller's Horse, 125. 

Chalons, tailor of, 81. 

Changelings, 86. 



Charis and Charites, 190. 
Chark, 62. 

Charlemagne, 26, 199, seq. 

Charon's ferry-boat, 49; obolus in 

funeral rites, 234. 
Cnateau Vert, 72. 

Chesterfield, Lord, his remark about 
the capriciousness of the human 
mind, 218. 

Chimaira, 114. 

Clerk and Image, 59. 

Cloud-maidens, 96. 

Clouds as cows, 19, 49 ; as birds, 50 ; 

as mountains or rocks, 54. 
Cows as psychopomps, 49. 
Cox, G. W., 9, 14, 89, 193, 197, 211. 
Creation of man, 65. 
Cushna, 118. 

Cyrus, legend of his infancy, 114. 
D. 

Dagon, 19, 24. 

Dahana, 113. 

Dancers of Kolbeck, 27. 

Danish legend of Tell, 3. 

Daphne, 113. 

Daras, 71. 

Dasyu, 113. 

Davy's locker, 124. 

Dawn as detector of crimes, 57, 210. 

Day swallowed by Night, 77. 

Death misinterpreted by savages, 75. 

Demoniacal possession, 237. 

Deva, 107. 

Devil and walnut, 36 ; etymology of, 
106 ; in mediaeval mythology, 123- 
129 ; a profound scholar according 
to Scotch divines, 124 ; blinded like 
Polyphemos, 125 ; his gullibility, 
125, seq. 

Dewel, Gypsy name for God, 105. 
Dido and the ox-hides, 71 ; abandoned 

by Aineias, 111. 
Dietrich, 201. 
Diocletian's ostrich, 44. 
Diomedes, 193. 
Dionysos, 124. 
Divining-rod, 37, 55, 64. 
Dog howling under the window, 35, 76. 



INDEX. 



245 



Dogs, how far capable of fetichistic ) 

notions, 221. 
Don Carlos, 22. 
Dorians in Peloponnesos, 180. 
Donster swivel, 37. 

Dreams, primitive philosophy of, 219. 
Drowning man ought not to be res- 
, cued, 215. 
Durandal, 24. 

Dyaus, or Dyaus-pitar t 20, 50, 52, 107, 
108. 

E. 

East of the sun and west of the moon, 
98. 

Echidna, 58, 114. 

Echoes fetichistically explained, 224. 
Ecstasy, 222. 
Eden-myth, 122. 
Efreets, 123. 
Egeria, 30. 
Egil, 5, 24. 

Eleanor, wife of Edward I., 22. 
Eleven thousand virgins, 28. 
Elixir of life, 63. 

Elizabeth, Hungarian countess, 80. 
Elizabeth, wife of Philip II. , 22. 
Elves, 96. 

Embodiment, theory of, 226, 
Endymion, 25, 161. 
England,the land of ghosts, 28. 
Eos, 198. 
Epimenides, 26. 
Epimetheus, 64. 
Erceldoune, Thomas of, 30. 
Erinys, 57, 114, 123, 210. 
Erlking, 31, seq. 

Erotic virtues of lightning-plants, 65. 
Es-Sirat, 48. 

Esquimaux moon-myth, 162. 
Etymological myths, 70. 
Etzel, 201. 
Euhemeros, 15. 
Eumenides, 223. 

Euphemisms for dreaded beings, 223. 
Eurykleia, 25. 
Eurystheus, 112, 169. 
Evil, Jewish conception of, 122. 
Excalibur, 24. t 



F. 

Fafnir, 132. 

Fairies degraded by Christianity, 129. 

Faithful John, 9, 142. 

Farid-Uddin Attar, 5. 

Fasting, origin of the practice in 

savage philosophy, 237. 
Faust, black dog which appeared in 

his study, 124. 
Feather-dresses, 98. 
Fena and Phoinix, 71. 
Fenrir, 77. 
Fern-seed, 44. 
Fetches, 228. 

Figuier, Louis, his fancies concerning 

metempsychosis, 231. 
Fiji theory of souls, 18 ; of the second 

death, 230. 
Fingal, 71. 

Fish, in the tale of Sindbad, 172. 

Fisherman and Efreet, 36. 

Foi scientijique, 39. 

Folliculus, 7. 

Forget-me-not, 42. 

Forty Thieves, 42. 

Four a sacred number, 160. 

Freeman, E. A., his view of the Trojan 

War, 199, seq. 
Freischutz and Devil, 127. 
Frere's "Old Deccan Days," 10. 
Freudenberger, Uriel, 3. 
Frodi and his quern, 66. 
Funeral sacrifices illustrating theory 

of object-souls, 233. 
Furies, 57, 123. 

Gr. 

Gaia, 198. 
Gambrinus, 128. 
Gandharvas, 95. 
Garcilaso de la Vega, 112. 
Gellert, 6. 
Gertrude, 34. 
Gessler, 2. 

Gesta Komanorum, 7, 44, 94, 125. 
Ghost, geist, etymology of, 225. 
Giant who had no Heart in his Body, 
9, 132, 146, 163, 227. 



246 



INDEX. 



Giants or Trolls as uncivilized prehis- 
toric Europeans, 130. 

Gladstone, W. E., his "Juvenilis 
Mundi," 174, seq. ; maintains the 
unity of the Homeric poems, 181, 
seq. ; his uncritical views of ancient 
history and legend, 191 ; his ig- 
norance of comparative mythology, 
203 ; unsoundness of his philology, 
206. 

Glaukos, 199. 

Glaukos and Polyidos, 60. 

Glistening Heath, 132. 

Gnat and Shepherd, 7. 

God, etymology of, 105, 198. 

Golden Fleece, 133. 

Gorgon's head, 58. 

Graiai, 50. 

Grateful beasts 9. 

Great Bear, 73. 

Grenier Jean, 83, 90. 

Grote, G. , his theory of the structure 
of the Iliad, 187. 

Guilliman, his work on Swiss antiqui- 
ties, 3. 

Gunadhya, 33. 

Guodan, 105. 

Gyges, ring of, 44. 

H. 

Hagen, 24. 

Hair of werewolf growing inward, 89. 

Hamelin, piper of, 31. 

Hamlet, 195. 

Hand of glory, 45, 56. 

Hare-hp, 161. 

Harold Bine-tooth, 4. 

Harold Hardrada, 5. 

Harpies and swan-maidens, 164. 

Hassan of El-Basrah, 13. ■ 

Hatto (Bishop), 34, 72, 227. 

Heartless Giant, 9, 132, 146, 163, 227. 

Hektor, 189. 

Helena, 20, 121, 196. 

Helios, oxen of, 205. 

HeUenes, 180. 

Hemingr, 5, 24. 

Hephaistos and Aphrodite, 65, 190 ; 
and Devil, 124. 



Herakleids, legend of, 179, 192. 
Herakles, 15, 24, 112, 169. 
Herakles and Geryon, 117. 
Heraldic emblems, 78. 
Hercules and Cacus, 22, 116, seq. 
Here, 19. 

Hermes, 19, 20, 32, 35, 67, 124, 204. 

Hesperides, 15. 

Hildesheim, monk of, 26. 

Hindu practice of self-immolation for 

purposes of revenge, 75. 
Historic period, beginning of, 177. 
Hitopadesa, 12. 
Holda, 35. 
Holy water, 63. 
Homer, birthplace of, 178. 
Homeric poems, date of, 179 ; Woman 

hypothesis, 181 ; unity of style, 185 ; 

not analogous to ballad poetry, 186 ; 

artistic structure, 187 ; unhistorical 

character, 191. 
Homerids, 183. 
Horsel, 28. 
Horselberg, 29. 
Houris, 102. 

Hyperboreans, garden of, 114. 
L 

Ida, 114. 

Iliad, its structure, according to Grote, 
187. 

Ilsenstein shepherd, 41. 
Indian summer, myth of, 25. 
Indra, 109, seq., 196. 
Indra Savitar, 56. 

Invisibility from use of talismans, 44. 
Iokaste, Iole, and Iamos, 113. 
Iole, 19, 196. 
Ioskeha, 156. 
Iris, 204. 

Itshe-likantunjambili, 168. 
Ixion, 19, 50. 

J. 

Jack and Jill, 28, 213. 

Jack and the Beanstalk, 23, 33, 79, 

151, 163, 168. 
Jack the Giant-killer, 130. 



INDEX. 



247 



Jacolliot, " Bible in India," 205. 
Jewish notion of the firmament, 48. 
Jinn, 129, 239. 
Jonah and the whale, 77. 
Joseph of Arimathaea, 27. 
Joseph and Zuleikha, 205. 
Jotuns, 129. 
Jupiter, 20, 108, 117. 

K. 

Kaikias, 117. 
Kalypso, 30, 111. 
Kamtchatkan lightning-myth, 169. 
Karl the Great, 200. 
Kasimbaha, 163. 

Kelly, W. K., on lightning-myths, 49, 
62, 66. 

Kennedy, P., his Irish legends, 86, 101, 
136. 

Kerberos, 20, 124. 

Kinships among barbaric myths, 150. 
Kirke, 111. 

Korpibos, Olympiad of, 177. 
Krilof's Fables, 7. 

Kuhn's " Descent of Fire," 47 ; his 
theory of myths not incompatible 
with Max Midler's, 119. 

L. 

Labe, Queen, 111. 

Lad who went to the North Wind, 67. 
Lady of Shalott, 49. 
Laios, 112. 

Lancashire witch bequeaths her soul 

to a friend, 226. 
Lapps as giants or Trolls, 130. 
Latium, 72. 
Leichnam, 102. 
Leopard and Ram, 131. 
Leto, 198. 

Lightning-birds, 51, 168. 
Lightning-myths in barbaric folk-lore, 

168, seq. 
Lightning-plants, 40, 44, 55, 61. 
Llangeller, 7. 
Lotos-eaters, 50. 
Loup-garou, 69. 



Luck-flower, 43. 
Lykaon, 69. 
Lykegenes, 71. 
Lykians, 73, 199. 



M. 

Maitland, blasphemous remark of, 104. 

Malay swan-maidens, 162. 

Malleus Maleftcarum, 5. 

Man in the Moon, 27. 

Manabozho, 153. 

Mandara, or Manthara, 63, 171. 

Manes-worship, 74, 236. 

Maori divination with Venus and moon, 

218. 
Mara, 93, seq. 
Marechal de Retz, 80. 
Master Thief, 11, 35. 
Maui, 67, 169. 

Max Midler, his theory of mythology 

inadequate, 135, 210. 
Medeia, 111. 
Medusa, 58, 114. 
Meleagros, 19, 24, 112. 
Melusina, 96. 
Memnon, 199. 

Merchant of Louvain and DevU, 126. 

Merlin, 26. 

Mermaid's cap, 100. 

Mermaids foretokening shipwreck, 103. 

Metempsychosis, 74, 230, seq. 

Mice and rats as souls, 33. 

Michabo, 25, 73, 153. 

Milesian, soubriquet for the Irish, 71. 

Milky Way, 151. 

Mirror, when broken, portends a death 

in the family, 217. 
Mishkat-ul-Masabih, 22. 
Mitra, 110. 
Moon and hare, 161. 
Moon-myths among barbarians, 161. 
Moon-spots, 27. 
Mother Goose, 27. 
Mouse Tower, maut-thurm, 34, 72. 
Muri-ranga-whenua, 169. 
Mykenai, its ancient supremacy in 

Greece, 200. 
Myth, definition of, 21, seq. 



248 



INDEX. 



N. 

Names, savages unwilling to tell 

them, 223. 
Nausikaa, 102. 

Necklace of swan-maiden, 99. 
Nectar, 63. 
Nephele, 133, 196. 
Nessos-shirt, 24. 
Nestor, 193. 

Nibelungenlied, 132 ; as illustrating 

Iliad, 201. 
Nibelungs, 196. 

Nick, as epithet of the Devil, 124. 
Niebuhr's views concerning words 

common to Greek and Latin, 206. 
Night-and-morning-myth resembles 

storm-myth, 119. 
Night-folk, 129. 
Nightmare, 93. 
Nixy and her glove, 99. 
Not a Pin to choose between them, 

128. 
Numa, 30. 
Nymph, 97. 



o. 

Oberon, horn of, 33. 

Odin, 32, 35, 67, 105, 124 ; his gold- 
en ship, 49 ; his magic cudgel, 67, 
217. 

Odin, lord of the gallows, 56. 
Odysseus, 23, 25, 30, 53, 111. 
Oidipous, 22, 60, 112. 
Oinone, 19, 113. 
Olaf, Saint, 132. 
Olaf Tryggvesson, 26. 
Olger Danske, 26. 
Olympiad of Koroibos, 177. 
Omar, 15. 

Oracle-possession, 237. 
Ormuzd, 121. 
Orpheus, 32, 124. 
Orthros, 118. 
Ossa and Pelion, 54. 
Other self, primitive doctrine of, 
219, seq. 



P. 

Palmatoki, 3, 24. 

Pan, his relationship to the Devil 
124. 

Panch Phul Ranee, 61. 

Panchatantra, 7. 

Panis, 20, 58, 118, 120, 196. 

Paris, 20, 193; invested with solar 

attributes, 195, 198. 
Parizade, 11. 
Patroklos, 189. 
Paul Pry, 36. 

Pavilion given by the Peri Banou 

to Ahmed, 49. 
Peisistratos, his recension of Homer, 

181. 

Pelasgian theory of Niebuhr, 206. 
Penelope, 24, 111. 

Permanence in language and cul- 
ture, conditions essential to, 149. 
Peter Schlemihl, 224. 
Phaethon, 19. 
Philip II., 22. 

Philological method, how far use- 
ful in the study of myths, 144, 

seq. 

Phoenician origin of the Irish, 71. 
Phoibos, 19. 
Phoibos Lykegenes, 71. 
Phoroneus, 65. 
Phrixos and Helle, 133. 
Pictures, animation of, 223. 
Piper of Hamelin, 31. 
Pitris, 76, 237. 

Pliny's account of springwort, 44. 
Polomyia, cannibal beggar of, 82. 
Polynesian sun-myth, 170. 
Polyphemos, his one eye, 50, 53 ; his 

blinding, 125. 
Poseidon, 204. 
Pramantha, 64. 

Primeval philosophy, 16, 18, 21, 47, 
216. 

Princesses carried off by Trolls and 

Efreets, 132. 
Prometheus, 64. 
Puncher, 5. 

Punchkin, 10, 132, 146. 
Putraka, 13. 



INDEX. 



249 



Q. 

Quetzalcoatl, 157. 

R. 

Rain-water, mythical conception of, 
63. 

Rainbow, 151, 204. 

Rakshasa, 77. 

Rama and Luxman, 9, 142. 

Rattlesnakes afraid of ash-trees, 61. 

Red James, 100. 

Red Riding Hood, 77. 

Renan, E., his suggestion that an ex- 
ploration of the Hindu Kush might 
throw light on the origin of lan- 
guage, 175. 

Retz, Marechal de, 80. 

Rhampsinitos, 14. 

Rickard the Rake, 86. 

Riksha, 73. 

Rip van Winkle, 26. 

Robin red-breast, 71 ; wickedness of 
killing robins, 51, 214. 

Roc's egg, 50. 

Romulus as guardian of children, 237. 
Roulet, Jacques, 84, 90. 
Rousseau, J. J., his method of inquir- 
ing into the safety of his soul, 218. 



s. 

Sacrifices, 233. 
Saktideva, 77. 

Samu and his brethren, 230. 
Sancus, 117. 

Sanskrit names of Greek deities, 20. 

Sarama, 20, 119, seq., 196. 

Sarameias, 20, 204. 

Saranyu, 57, 210. 

Sarpedon, 193, 199. 

Sassafras, 43. 

Satan, 122. 

Saxo Grammaticus. 3. 
Scaletta, 71. 

Scarlet fever, in Persian folk-lore, 239. 
Schamir, 43, 51. 

Scribe, his remark about the possible 
11* 



number of dramatic situations, 115, 
133. 

Sculloge of Muskerry, 136-140. 
Sea of Streams of Story, 13. 
Seal-women, 100. 
Sebastian of Portugal, 26. 
Selene, 198 ; and Endymion, 161. 
Serpent in Eden, 122. 
Serpent's venom neutralized by ash- 
tree, 61. 
Sesame, 42, 168. 
Seven Sleepers, 26. 
Seyf-el-Mulook, 10. 
Shotover, 72. 

Siberian swan-maidens, 163. 
Siegfried, 24. 

Sieve of the Daughters of Danaos, 48. 
" Signatures," doctrine of, 55. 
Sigurd, 24, 132. 
Simoom, 239. 

Sindbad, his great fish, 172. 
Sioux, lightning-myth, 62. 
Sir Elidoc, 61. 
Sir Guyon, 59. 
Sirens, 32. 

Sisyphos and his stone, 50. 
Skin-changers, 89. 
Skithblathnir, 49. 
Sky descending at horizon, 48. 
Sky-sea, 49. 

Skye-terrier and ball, 220. 

Slamming door, 229. 

Sleeping Beauty, 25. 

Snake leaves, 60. 

Snake of darkness, 114. 

Solomon, 43. 

Soma, 63. 

Somadeva, 13, 77. 

Song of sixpence, 212. 

Soul, quitting body during lifetime, 
78 ; as shadow, 224 ; as breath, 225, 
seq. ; resemblance to body, 228, seq. ; 
killed over again, 230 ; souls of 
beasts, 230 ; of plants, 231 ; of in- 
animate objects, 232. 

Spencer, Herbert, on totemism, 74 ; 
on the doctrine of ghosts, 222. 

Spento-mainyas, 121. 

Sphinx, 22, 60, 114. 

Spirits, doctrine of, 225, seq. 



250 



INDEX. 



St. George and the Dragon, 23. 
St. John's sleep at Ephesus, 26. 
Stars as missiles for stoning the Devil, 

22 ; as angels' eyes, 76 ; as pitris, 

•76. 

Storm-myth, resemblance to dawn- 
myth, 119. 

Story -roots, 115. 

Succubus, monkish tale of, 94. 

Sun as prototype of Don Juan, 111. 

Sun-catcher-myths, 112, 169. 

Sun-myths, 23 ; why they are so nu- 
merous, 134. 

Sun-worship, 108. 

Sunset-clouds representing hell, 48. 

Suttee, not sustained by Vedic author- 
ity, 233 ; remarkable case of, in 
England, 234. 

Swan-maiden as psychopomp, 102. 

Swearing, Puritan horror of, 224. 

Symplegades, 54. 

T. 

Tannhauser, 29. 
Tantalos, 73. 
Tawiskara, 156. 

Tell, William, 1-6, 15, 24, 239, 241. 
Te pi and Ukuhlonipa, or tabuing of 

chief's name, 223. 
Themis, 206. 
Thor, 19, 65, 124. 
Three Princesses of Whiteland, 12. 
Three Tells of Kiitli, 26. 
Tithonos, 27. 
Tom of Coventry, 36. 
Tom Thumb, 77. 
Tortoise supporting world, 171. 
Totemism, 74. 
Trance, 78. 
Trolls, 129, seq. 

Trojan War, 20 ; elements of the myth 
found in the Vedas, 20, 120, 194 ; 
how far a sun-myth, 195 ; how far a 
genuine tradition, 199, seq. 

Tuesday, etymology of, 108. 

XT. 

Undine, 98. 

Unity of human culture, 149. 



Unkulunkulu, 236. 
Ursula, 28. 

Urvasi and Pururavas, 95. 
Usilosimapundu, 172. 
Utahagi, 163. 
Uthlakanyana, 166. 

V. 

Valkyries, 19, 102. 

Valley of diamonds, 50. 

Van Diemen's Land, the home of 

ghosts, 28. 
Varuna, 50, 110. 
Vasilissa the Beautiful, 77. 
Venus, 25. 
Venusberg, 29. 
Viracocha, 156. 
Vittikab, 33, 124. 
Vivasvat, 110. 
Vivien, 26. 
Volsunga Saga, 132. 
Vritra, 114, 118, 120. 
Vulcan, 124. 

W. 

Wainamoinen, 33. 
Wali and cook, 7. 
Wandering Jew, 27, 114. 
Waterspout, 239. 

Waxen image, necromancy with, 217. 

Wayland Smith, 5, 124. 

Werewolf, etymology of, 69 ; hallu- 
cination, 85 ; summary of the super- 
stition, 88 ; enchantment variously 
cured, 90, 92 ; in South Africa, 164. 

Werewolves and witchcraft, 79, 91 ; in 
Aryan and barbaric folk-lore, con- 
trasted, 165. 

White bear as bridegroom, 98. 

Why the sea is salt, 66. 

Wild Huntsman, 27, 33, 76. 

William of Cloudeslee, 5, 24. 

Wind-and-Weather, 132. 

Windows opened to let souls pass out, 
76, 229. 

Winterthur, John of, 2. 

Wishbone, 55. 



INDEX. 



Wishrod, 66. 

Wolf of darkness, 77. 

Wolf girdle, 90. 

Wolfskin, 89. 

Wolfian hypothesis, 181. 

World-tortoise, 171. 

Wraiths, 228. 



Y. 

Yama, 76. 

Yarrow and rue, 100. 



Yellow hair of solar heroes, 202. 

Yggdrasil, 65. 

Youth of the World, 175. 



Z. 

Zendavesta, 121. 

Zens, 20 ; etymology of, 107. 

Zens Lykaios, 69. 

Zio, 108. 

Zohak, 114. 

Zulu folk-lore, 165-169. 



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